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THE
ORATIONS
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
litirallij toisktefo taj
C. D. YONGE, B.A.
VOL. I.
ORATIONS FOR QUINTIUS, SEXTUS ROSCIUS, QTJINTUS ROSCIUS.
AGAINST QUINTUS C2ECILIUS, AND AGAINST VERRES.
LONDON:
HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1866.
Complete in One large Volume, royal 8vo. handsomely printed,
Price 12s.
CICEBO'S LIFE AND LETTERS;
THE LIFE BY MIDDLETON ;
FAMILIAR LETTERS, TRANSLATED BY MELMOXH;
THE LETTERS TO ATTICUS, BY HEBERPKN.
Sffilttfj fine tftonti&yittt anU portrait
London : HENRY G. Bonn, Y ork Street, Ccvent Garden.
CON T E N T S.
PAGE
Oration of M. T. Cicero as the Advocate of P. Quintius .... 1
for Sextus Roscius of Ameria 37
for Quintus Eoscius the Actor 87
against Quintus Csecilius 107
First Oration against Caius Verres 131
First Book of the Second Pleading against Verres. — Respecting
his conduct in the City Prsetorship 152
Second Book of the Second Pleading against Verres. — Concerning
his manner of deciding Causes as Judge -while in Sicily . . 216
Third Book of the Second Pleading in the Accusation against
Verres. — On the count relating to Corn 294
Fourth Book of the Second Pleading in the Prosecution of
Verres. — Respecting the Statues 397
Fifth Book of the Second Pleading in the Prosecution against
Verres. — Speech on the Punishments . . . , 468
PREFACE.
THE text generally followed in the present translation is
that of Orellius. This volume was for the most part printed
off before Professor G. Long's new edition of the Verrine
Oration appeared ; so that the translator has been able to
avail himself of the assistance afforded by it only in a
slight degree. For many important illustrations, especially
of points connected with Roman law, he refers the student
to that edition.
C. D. Y.
CICEEO'S OEATIONS.
THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO AS THE ADVOCATE OF
P. QUINTIUS.
THE ARGUMENT.
Caius Quintius and Sextus Nsevius, one of the public criers, had been
partners, having their chief business in Gallia Narbonensis — Caius
died, and left his brother Publius his heir, between whom and Naevius
there arose disputes concerning the division of the property of the
partnership. Caius had left some debts, and Publius proposed to sell
some lands which his brother had acquired as private property near
Narbonne, for the purpose of liquidating them. Naevius interposed
difficulties in the way of his doing so, and by various artifices tried
to make it appear that Quintius had forfeited his recognizances ;
which would have given a different complexion to the whole case, as
to forfeit one's recognizances was a crime liable to the punishment of
infamia at Rome. Cicero undertook the defence of Quintius at the
request of Roscius the actor — ISTsevius's cause was conducted by Hor-
tensius, the greatest advocate at Rome. It is doubtful whether this
really was the first cause in which Cicero was engaged, as many think
that he himself speaks in this oration of having been concerned in
other trials previously, and that the speech for Sextus Roscius was his
first. Quintius gained the verdict.
I. THE two things which have the greatest influence in a
state, — namely, the greatest interest, and eloquence, are both
making against us at the present moment ; and while I am
awed1 by the one, 0 Caius Aquillius, I am in fear of the
other : — I am somewhat awed, apprehending that the elo
quence of Quintius Hortensius may embarrass me in speak
ing ; but I am in no slight fear lest the interest of Sextus
Nsevius may injure Publius Quintius. And yet it would not
1 The Latin is " quorum alteram vereor, alteram metuo," vereor ex
pressing a slighter degree of alarm than metuo or timeo, and also one
arising rather from the character and dignity of the adversary, than
from any apprehension of consequences to oneself.
B
25 CICERO'S OKATIOXS.
seem so disastrous for us that these things should exist in the
highest degree in the other party, if they existed also to a
moderate extent in us ; but the fact is, that I. who have
neither sufficient experience nor much ability, am brought
into comparison with a most eloquent advocate ; and that
Publius Quintius, who has but small influence, no riches, and
few friends, is contending with a most influential adversary.
And, moreover, we have this additional disadvantage, that
Marcus Junius, who has several times pleaded this cause
before you, 0 Aquillins, a man practised in the conduct of
other causes also, and m :ich and frequently concerned in this
particular one, is at tL..s moment absent, being engaged on
his new commission ; 1 and so they have had recourse to me,
who, even if I had all other requisite qualifications in ever so
high a degree, have certainly scarcely had time enough to be
able to understand so important a business, having so many
points of dispute involved in it. So that also, which has been
used to be an assistance to me in other causes, is wanting to
me in this one ; for in proportion to my want of. ability, have
I endeavoured to make amends for that want by industry,
and unless time and space be given to one, it cannot be seen
how great his industry is. But the greater our disadvantages,
O Caius Aquillius, are, with so much the more favourable a-
disposition ought you, and those who are your colleagues in this
trial, to listen to our words, that the truth, though weakened
by many disadvantages, may be at last re-established by the
equity of such men as you. But if you, being the judge,' shall
appear to be no protection to a desolate and helpless condition
against power and influence ; if before this tribunal the cause
is found to depend on interest, not on truth ; then indeed
there is nothing any longer holy and uncontaminated in the
state, — no hope that the firmness and virtue of the judge may
counterbalance the lowly condition of any one. But un
doubtedly before you and your colleagues truth will prevail,
or else, if it be driven from this place by power and influence,
it will not be able to find any place where it can stand.
II. I do not say this, 0 Caius Aquillius, because I have
any doubt of your own good faith and constancy, or because
Publius Quintius ought not to have the greatest hopes from
those whom you have called in as your assessors, being, as
1 It is not known what this legatio was.
FOR P. QUINTIUS. 3
they are, among the most eminent1 men in the state. What
then ? In the first place, the magnitude of the danger causes
a man the greatest fear, because he is staking all his fortunes
on one trial ; and while he is thinking of this, the recollection
of your power does not occur to his mind less frequently than
that of your justice ; because all men whose lives are in
another's hand more frequently think of what he, in whose
power and under whose dominion they are, can do, than
of what he ought to do, — Secondly, Publius Quintius has for
his adversary, in name indeed, Sextus Neevius, but in reality,
the most eloquent, the most gallant, the most accomplished
men of our state, who are defending Sextus Ncevius with one
common zeal, and with all their power : if, indeed, defending
means so to comply with the desire of another, that he may
the more easily be able to overwhelm whomsoever he chooses
by an unjust trial ; for what, 0 Caius Aquillius, can be men
tioned or spoken of more unjust or more unworthy than this,
that I who am defending the liberties,2 the fame, and fortunes
of another should be compelled to open the cause, especially
when Quintus Hortensius, who in this trial fills the part of
the accuser, is to speak against me ; a man to whom nature
has given the greatest possible fluency and energy in speaking 1
Matters are so managed, that I, who ought rather to ward
off the darts of our adversary and to heal the wounds he has
inflicted, am compelled to do so now, even when the adver
sary has cast no dart; and that that time is given to them to
attack us when the power of avoiding their attacks is to be
taken from us ; and if in any particular they should (as they
are well prepared to do) cast any false accusation like a
poisoned arrow at us, there will be no opportunity for apply
ing a remedy. That has happened through the injustice
and wrong-doing of the praetor ; first, because, contrary to
universal custom, he has chosen that the trial as to honour
1 Their names were Lucius Lucilius, Publius Quintilius, and Marcus
Marcellus ; " The judex was generally aided by advisers learned in the
law, (jurisconsult!,) who were said in concilia adcsse, but the judex
alone was empowered to give judgment." Smith, Diet. Ant. v. Judex.
2 The Latin has caput, which in a legal sense expresses not only a
man's life, but also his status or civil condition ; to be registered in the
census was caput habere; to change one's rank, capite, &c. diminuere. And
BO a trial which affected not only a citizen's life, but his rank or liberty,
was called judicium capitale.
4 CICERO S ORATIONS.
or infamy ' should take place before the one concerning the
fact ; secondly, because he has so arranged this very trial,
that the defendant is compelled to plead his cause before he
has heard a word of the accuser's ; and this has been done
because of the influence and power of those men who indulge
the violence and covetousness of Sextus Neevius as eagerly as
if their own property or honour were at stake, and who
make experiment of their influence in such matters as this, in
which the more weight they have through their virtue and
nobility, the less they ought to make a parade of what in
fluence they have. Since Publius Quintius, involved in and
overwhelmed by such numerous and great difficulties, has
taken refuge, 0 Caius Aquillius, in your good faith, in your
truth, in your compassion; when, up to this time, owing to
the might of his adversaries, no equal law could be found for
him, no equal liberty of pleading, no just magistrate, when,
through the greatest injustice, everything was unfavourable
and hostile to him ; he now prays and entreats you, 0 Caius
Aquillius, and all of ye who are present as assessors, to allow
justice, which has been tossed about and agitated by many
injuries, at length to find rest and a firm footing in this
place.
III. And that you may the more easily do this, I will en
deavour to make you understand how this matter has been
managed and carried out. Caius Quintius was the brother of
this Publius Quiutius ; in other respects a sufficiently prudent
and attentive head of a family, but in one matter a little
less wise, inasmuch as he formed a partnership with Sextus
Na3vius, a respectable man, but one who had not been brought
up so as to be acquainted with the rights of partnership, or
with the duties of a head of an established family.2 Not that
he was wanting in abilities ; for Sextus Nsevius as a buffoon
was never considered without wit, nor as a crier was he
reckoned unmannerly. What followed 1 As nature had given
him nothing better than a voice, and his father had left him
1 Because if it were decided that Quintius had forfeited his recog
nizances, infam/a was the consequence.
2 The office of praeco was so little reputable that before Cicero's death
a law was passed to prevent all persons who had been prcecones from
becoming decuriones in the municipia. Under the emperors, however,
it became very profitable.
FOR P. QUINTIUS. 5
nothing besides his freedom, he made gain of his voice, and
used his freedom for the object of being loquacious with im
punity. So there was no reason in the world for your taking
him as a partner, except that he might learn with your money
what a harvest money can produce. Nevertheless, induced
by acquaintance and intimacy with the man, Quiutius, as I
have said, entered into a partnership with him as to those
articles which were procured in Gaul. He had considerable
property in cattle, and a well-cultivated and productive farm.
Neevius is carried oiF from the halls of Licinius, ' and from the
gang of criers, into Gaul and across the Alps ; there is a
great change in his situation,2 none in his disposition ; for he
who from his boyhood had been proposing to himself gain
without any outlay, as soon as he spent anything himself and
brought it to the common stock, could not be content with a
moderate profit. Nor is it any wonder if he, who had his
voice for sale, thought that those things which he had ac
quired by his voice would be a great profit to him ; so that
without much moderation, he carried off whatever he could
from the common stock to his private house for himself. And
in this he was as industrious as if all who behaved in a part
nership with exact good faith, were usually condemned in a
trial before an arbitrator.3 But concerning these matters I do
not consider it necessary to say what Publius Quintius wishes
me to mention ; although the cause calls for it : yet as it
only calls for it, and does not absolutely require it,4 1 will pass
it over.
IV. When this partnership had now subsisted many years,
and when Nsevius had often been suspected by Quintius, and
1 The Hall of Licinius, i. e. Licinius Crassus, was the celebrated one
where he erected four columns of Hymettian marble, for the theatrical
shows in his aedileship, and was one of the common resorts of auc
tioneers and criers.
2 " Ccelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt." — Her.
Epist. 1, ii. 27.
3 The Latin has " arbitrium pro socio condemnari," on which Grsevius
says, " 'Arbitrium pro socio,' is a formula of law, by which is signified an
action and trial in a case of partnership if any one had cheated his
partner ; and Cicero means that Nsevius was as industrious in cheating
his partner, as if those who did not cheat were liable to be condemned,
and not those who did cheat."
4 The Latin has " qniapostulatnonjlagitat," both words being nearly
synonymous, butflagito being evidently a stronger word than postulo.
6 CICERO S ORATIONS.
was not able conveniently to give an account of the trans
actions which he had carried on according to his caprice, and
not on any system, Quintius dies in Gaul, when Nsevius was
there too, and dies suddenly. By his will he left this Publius
Quintius his heir, in order that, as great grief would come to
him by his death, great honour should also accrue to him.
When he was dead, Publius Quintius soon after goes into
Gaul. There he lives on terms of intimacy with that fellow
Nsevius. There they are together nearly a year, during which
they had many communications with one another about their
partnership, and about the whole of their accounts and their
estate in Gaul ; nor during that time did Nsevius utter one
single word about either the partnership owing him anything,
or about Quiutius having owed him anything on his private
account. As there was some little debt left behind, the pay
ment of which was to be provided for at Rome, this Publius
Quintius issues notices that he shall put up to auction in
Gaul, at Narbonne, those things which were his own private
property. On this, this excellent man, Sextus Ntevius, dis
suades the man by many speeches from putting the things up
to auction, saying that he would not be able at that time to
sell so conveniently what he had advertised. That he had a
sum of money at Rome, which if Quintius were wise he would
consider their common property, from their brotherly inti
macy, and also from his relationship with himself ; for Ncevius
has married the cousin of Publius Quintius, and has children
by her. Because Naevius was saying just what a good man
ought, Quintius believed that he who imitated the language
of good men, would imitate also their actions. He gives up
the idea of having an auction ; he goes to Rome ; at the
same time Nrevius also leaves Gaul for Rome. As Caius
Quintius had owed money to Publius Scapula, Publius Quin
tius referred it to you, 0 Caius Aquillius, to decide what he
should pay his children. He preferred submitting to your
decision in this matter, because, on account of the difference
in the exchange, it was not sufficient to look in his books and
see how much was owed, unless he had inquired at the temple
of Castor1 how much was to be paid in Roman money. You
decide and determine, on account of the friendship existing
1 Some have wished to alter ad Castoris here to a qucestoribus ;
but the temple of Castor was a place where much money was kept : —
FOE P. QUIXTIUS. 7
between you and the family of the Scapuke, what was to ba
paid to them to a penny.
V. All these things Quintius did by the advice and at the
instigation of Neevius : nor is there anything strange in his
adopting the advice of the man whose assistance he thought
at his service. For not only had he promised it in Gaul, but
every day he kept on saying at Rome that he would pay the
money as soon as he gave him a hint to do so. Quintius
moreover saw that he was able to do so. He knew that ho
ought; he did not think that he was telling lies, because
there was no reason why he should tell lies. He arranged,
therefore, that he would pay the Scapulae as if he had the
money at home. He gives Nsevius notice of it, and asks him
to provide for the payment as he had said he would. Then
that worthy man, — I hope he will not think I am laughing at
him if I call him again a most worthy man, — as he thought
that he was brought into a great strait, hoping to pin him
down to his own terms at the very nick of time, says that ho
will not pay a penny, unless a decision is first come to about
all the affah's and accounts of the partnership, and unless he
knew that there would be no dispute between him and Quin
tius. We will look into these matters at a future time, says
Quintius, but at present I wish you to provide, if you please,
what you said you would. He says that he will not do so
on any other condition ; and that what he had promised no
more concerned him, than it would if when he was holding a
sale by auction, he had made any bidding at the command of
the owner. Quintius being perplexed at this desertion, obtains
a few days' delay from the Scapulae ; he sends into Gaul to
have those things sold which he had advertised ; being absent,
he sells them at a less favourable time than before; he pays
the Scapulae with more disadvantage to himself than he would
have done. Then of his own accord he calls Nsevius to
account, in order, since he suspected that there would be a
dispute about something, to provide for the termination of
the business as soon as possible, and with the smallest possible
trouble. He appoints as his umpire his friend Marcus Trebel-
" YErata- multus in area
Fiscus et ad vigilem ponendi Castora nummi." — Juv. xiv. 260.
and the precincts were accordingly much frequented by men skilful in
computing accounts, and the exchange of money.
8 CICERO'S ORATIOXS.
lius; we name a common friend, a relation of our own, Sextus
Alphenus, who had been brought up in his house, and with
whom he was exceedingly intimate. No agreement could be
come to ; because the one was willing to put up with a slight
loss, but the other was not content with a moderate booty.
So from that time the matter was referred to legal decision.1
After many delays, and when much time had been wasted in
that business, and nothing had been done, Neevius appeared
before the judge.
VI. I beseech you, 0 Caius Aquillius, and you the assessors
in this suit, to observe carefully, in order that you may be
able to understand the singular nature of this fraud, and the
new method of trickery employed. He says that he had had
a sale by auction in Gaul ; that he had sold what he thought
fit; that he had taken care that the partnership should owe
him nothing ; that he would have no more to do with sum
moning any one, or with giving security ; if Quintius had any
business to transact with him, he had no objection. He, as
he was desirous to revisit his farm in Gaul, does not summon
the man at present; so he departs without giving security.
After that, Quintius remains at Rome about thirty days. He
gets any securities which he had given other people respited,
so as to be able to go without hindrance into Gaul. He goes ;
he leaves Rome on the twenty-ninth of January, in the Con
sulship of Scipio and Norbanus ; — I beg of you to remember
the day. Lucius Albius the son of Sextus of the Quirine
tribe, a good man and of the highest reputation for honour,
set out with him. When they had come to the place called
the fords of Volaterra, they see a great friend of Nsevius, who
was bringing him some slaves from Gaul to be sold, Lucius
Publicius by name, who when he arrived in Rome told Nsevius
in what place he had seen Qnintius ; and unless this had been
told Nsevius by Publicius, the matter would not so soon have
come to trial. Then Na3vius sends his slaves round to his
friends; he summons himself all his associates from the halls
of Licinius and from the jaws of the shambles, and entreats
them to come to the booth of Sextus by the second hour of
1 Lit. "recognizances were entered into." When the prjetor had granted
an action, the plaintiff required the defendant to give security for his
appearance before the praetor on a stated day, commonly the day but
oue after the in jus vocatio*
FOR P. QUIXTIUS. fc
the next day. They come in crowds; he makes oath that
Publius Quintius has not appeared to his bail, and that he has
appeared to his. A long protest to this effect is sealed with
the seals of noble men. They depart : Nsevius demands of
Burrienus the praetor, that by his edict he may take possession
of Quintius's goods.1 He urged the confiscation of the pro
perty of that man with whom he had had intimacy, with
whom he actually was in partnership, between whom and
himself there was a relationship, which while his children
lived could not possibly be annulled. From which act it
could easily be perceived that there is no bond so holy and
solemn, that avarice is not in the habit of weakening and
violating it. In truth, if friendship is kept up by truth,
society by good faith, relationship by affection, it is inevitable
that he who has endeavoured to despoil his friend, his part
ner, and his relation of fame and fortune, should confess him
self worthless and perfidious and impious. Sextus Alphenus,
the agent of Publius Quintius, the intimate friend and relation
of Sextus Nsevius, tears down the bills ; carries off one little
slave whom Nsevius had laid hold of ; gives notice that he is
the agent, and that it is only fair that that fellow should
consult the fame and fortunes of Publius Quintius, and await
his arrival. But if he would not do so, and believed that by
such methods he could bring him into the conditions which
he proposed, then he asked nothing as a favour, and if Nsevius
chose to go to law, he would defend him at the trial. While
this is being done at Rome, meantime Quintius, contrary to
law and to custom, and to the edicts of the praetors, is driven
by force by the slaves which belonged to both him and
Nsevius, as partners, from their common lands and estates.
VII. Think, 0 Caius Aquillius, that Naevius did every
thing at Rome with moderation and good sense, if this which
was done in Gaul in obedience to his letters was done rightly
and legally. Quintius being expelled and turned out of his
farm, having received a most notorious injury, flies to Caius
Flaccus the general, who was at that time in the province;
whom I name to do him honour as his dignity demands.
How strongly he was of opinion that that action called for
1 If either party did not appear on the appointed day, he was said
"vadimonium deserere," and the praetor gave to the other party the
" bonorum possessio." Vide Smith's Diet. Ant. p. 9, v. Actio.
10 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
punishment you will be able to learn from his decrees. Mean
time Alphenus was fighting every day at Rome with that old
gladiator. He had the people indeed on his side, because that
fellow never ceased to aim at the head.1 Neevius demanded
that the agent should give security for payment on judgment
being given. Alphenus says that it is not reasonable for an
agent to give security, because the defendant would not be
bound to give security if he were present himself. The tri
bunes are appealed to, and as a positive decision was de
manded from them, the matter is terminated on the footing
of Sextus Alphenus undertaking that Publius Quintius should
answer to his bail by the thirteenth of September.
VIII. Quintius comes to Rome; he answers to his bail.
That fellow, that most energetic man, the seizer of other
men's goods, that invader, that robber, for a year and a half
asks for nothing, keeps quiet, amuses Quintius by proposals
as long as he can, and at last demands of Cnseus Dolabella,
the prsetor, that Quintius should give security for payment on
judgment being given, according to the formula, " Because
he demands it of him whose goods he has taken possession of
for thirty days, according to the edict of the praetor." Quin
tius made no objection to his ordering him to give security, if
his goods had been possessed, in accordance with the praetor's
edict. He makes the order; how just a one I do not say, — this
alone I do say, it was unprecedented : and I would rather not
have said even this, since any one could have understood both
its characters. He orders Publius Quintius to give security
to Sextus Nsevius, to try the point whether his goods had
been taken possession of for thirty days, in accordance with
the edict of the praetor. The friends who were then with
Quiutius objected to this : they showed that a decision ought
to be come to as to the fact, so that either each should give
security to the other, or else that neither should; that there
was no necessity for the character of either being involved
in the trial. Moreover, Quintius himself cried out that he
was unwilling to give security, lest by so doing he should seem
to admit that his goods had been taken possession of in ac-
1 There is an allusion here to the fights of gladiators, in which the
people disapproved of that gladiator who aimed too constantly at the
vital parts of his adversary, so as to make the combat short. There is
a pun here, caput meaning the head or life of the gladiator, and also the
free condition of a citizen.
FOR P. QUIKTIUS. 11
eordance with the edict : besides, if he gave a bond in that
manner, he should be forced (as has now happened) to speak
first in a trial affecting himself capitally. Dolabella (as high
born men are wont to do, who, whether they have begun to act
rightly or wrongly, carry either conduct to such a height that
no one born in our rank of life can overtake them) perseveres
most bravely in committing injustice : he bids him either
give security or give a bond; and meantime he orders our
advocates, who objected to this, to be removed with great
roughness.
IX. Quintius departs much embarrassed; and no wonder,
when so miserable a choice was offered him, and one so un
just, that he must either himself convict himself of a capital
offence if he gave security,1 or open the cause himself in a
capital trial if he gave a bond. As in the one case there was
no reason why he should pass an unfavourable sentence on
himself (for sentence passed by oneself is the hardest sentence
of all), but in the other case there was hope of coming before
such a man as a judge, as would show him the more favour the
more without interest he was, he preferred to give a bond.
He did so. He had you, 0 Caius Aquillius, for the judge ;
he pleaded according to his bond; in what I have now said
consists the sum and the whole of the present trial.
You see, 0 Caius Aquillius, that it is a trial touching not
the property of Publius Quintius, but his fame and fortunes.
Though our ancestors have determined that he who is plead
ing for his life should speak last, you see that we, owing to
this unprecedented accusation of the prosecutor's, are pleading
our cause first. Moreover, you see that those who are more ac
customed"' to defend people are to-day acting as accusers; and
that those talents are turned to do people injury, which have
hitherto been employed in ministering to men's safety, and in
assisting them. There remained but one thing more, which
they put in execution yesterday, — namely, to proceed against
you for the purpose of compelling you to limit the time
allowed us for making our defence ; and this they would easily
have obtained from the praetor if you had not taught him
1 Because the giving security now would be an admission that he had
forfeited his recognizances before ; which was liable to be punished with
infamia.
2 He means Hortensius.
12 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
what your rights and duties and business were. Nor was
there any longer any assistant left to us but yourself by whose
means we could obtain our rights against them. Nor was it
even enough for them to obtain that which might be justified
to everybody; so trifling and insignificant a thing do they
think power to be which is not exercised with injustice.
X. But since Hortensius urges you to come to a decision,
and requires of me that I should not waste time in speaking,
and complains that when the former advocate was defending
this action it never could be brought to a conclusion, I will
not allow that suspicion to continue to exist, that we are un
willing for the matter to be decided, nor will I arrogate to
myself a power of proving the case better than it has- been
proved before ; nor yet will I make a long speech, because the
cause has already been explained by him who has spoken be
fore, and brevity, which is exceedingly agreeable to me, is
required of me, who am neither able to devise ' nor to utter
many arguments. I will do what I have often observed you
do, 0 Hortensius; I will distribute my argument on the entire
cause into certain divisions. You always do so, because you
are always able. I will do so in this cause, because in this
cause I think I can. That power which nature gives you of
being always able to do so, this cause gives me, so that I am
able to do so to-day. I will appoint myself certain bounds
and limits, out of which I cannot stray if I ever so much
wish; so that both I may have a subject on which I may
speak, and Hortensius may have allegations which he may
answer, and you, 0 Caius Aquillius, may be able to perceive
beforehand what topics yoxi are going to hear discussed. We
say, 0 Sextus Naevius, that you did not take possession of
the goods of Publius Quintius in accordance with the edict of
the prsetor. On that point the security was given. I willsshow
first, that there was no cause why you should require of the
prsetor power to take possession of the goods of Publius Quin
tius ; in the second place, that you could not have taken pos
session of them according to the edict ; lastly, that you did
not take possession of them. I entreat you, 0 Caius Aquil
lius, and you too the assessors, to preserve carefully in your
1 He mentions in the Brutus that he -was at this time in a very deli
cate state of health. " Erat eo tempore in nobis summa gracilitas et
infirmitas corporis." Brutus, 313.
FOR P. QUINT1US. 13
recollections what I have undertaken. You will more easily
comprehend the whole business if you recollect this ; and you
will easily recal me by the expression of your opinion if I
attempt to overstep those barriers to which I have confined
myself. I say that there was no reason why he should make
the demand ; I say that he could not have taken possession
according to the edict; I say that he did not take possession.
When I have proved these three things, I will sum up the
whole.
XI. There was no reason why you should make the demand.
How can this be proved? Because Quintius owed nothing
whatever to Sextus Naevius, neither on account of the partner
ship, nor from any private debt. Who is a witness of this 1
Why, the same man who is our most bitter enemy. In this
matter I will cite you — you, I say, 0 Ntevius, as our witness.
Quintius was with you in Gaul a year, and more than that,
after the death of Cains Quintius. Prove that you ever
demanded of him this vast sum of money, I know not how
much; prove that you ever mentioned it, ever said it was
owing, and I will admit that he owed it. Caius Quintius
dies; who, as you say, owed you a large sum for some parti
cular articles. His heir, Publius Quintius, comes into Gaul
to you, to your joint estate, — comes to that place where not
only the property was, but also all the accounts and all the
books. Who would have been so careless in his private affairs,
who so negligent, who so unlike you, 0 Sextus, as not, when,
the effects were gone from his hands who had contracted the
debt, and had become the property of his heir, to inform the
heir of it as soon as he saw him? to apply for the money1? to
give in his account ? and if anything were disputed, to arrange
it either in a friendly manner, or by the intervention of strict
\aw? Is it not so? that which the best men do, those who
wish their relations and friends to be affectionate towards
them and honourable, would Sextus Nsevius not do that, he
who so burns, who is so hurried away by avarice, that he is un
willing tu give up any part of his own property, lest he should
leave some fraction to be any credit or advantage to this his
near relation. And would he not demand the money, if any
were owing, who, because that was not paid which was never
owed, seeks to take away not the money only, but even the
life of his relation? You were unwilling, I suppose, to be
14 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
troublesome to him whom you -will not allow even to live as
a free man ! You were unwilling at that time modestly to
ask that man for money, whom you now wish nefariously to
murder ! I suppose so. You were unwilling, or you did not
dare, to ask a man who was your relation, who had a regard
for you, a good man, a temperate man, a man older than
yourself. Often (as sometimes happens with men), when you
had fortified yourself, when you had determined to mention
the money, when you had corne ready prepared and having
considered the matter, you being a nervous man, of virgin
modesty, on a sudden checked yourself, your voice failed you,
you did not dare to ask him for money whom you wished to ask,
lest he should be unwilling to hear you. JSTo doubt that was it.
XII. Let us believe this, that Sextus Nsevius spared the ears
of the man whose life he is attacking ! If he had owed you
money, 0 Sextus, you would have asked for it at once; if not
at once, at all events soon after ; if not soon after, at least
after a time ; in six months I should think ; beyond all
doubt at the close of the year : but for a year and a half,
when you had every day an opportunity of reminding the
man of the debt, you say not one word about it ; but now,
when nearly two years have passed, you ask for the money.
What profligate and extravagant spendthrift, even before his
property is diminished, but while it is still abundant, would
have been so reckless as Sextus Nsevius was ? When I name
the man, I seem to myself to have said enough. Caius Quintius
owed you money ; you never asked for it : he died ; his pro
perty came to his heir ; though you saw him every clay, you
did not ask for it for two years ; will any one doubt which' is
the more probable, that Sextus Neovius would instantly have
asked for what was owed to him, or that he would not have
asked for two years 1 Had he no opportunity of asking ?
Why, he lived with you more than a year : could no measures
be taken in Gaul 1 But there was law administered in tho
province, and trials were taking place at Rome. The only
alternative remaining is, either extreme carelessness prevented
you, or extraordinary liberality. If you call it carelessness,
we shall wonder ; if you call it kindness, we shall laugh ; and
what else you can call it I know not ; it is proof enough that
nothing was owing to Nsevius, that for such a length of time
he asked for nothing.
FOR P. QUIXTIUS. 15
XIII. What if I show that this very thing which he is now
doing is a proof that nothing is due ? For what is Sextus
Nfevius doing now ? About what is there a dispute ? What
is this trial on which we have now been occupied two years ?
What is the important business with which he is wearying so
many eminent men ? He is asking for his money. What
now, at last ? But let him ask ; let us hear what he has to
say. He wishes a decision to be come to concerning the
accounts and disputes of the partnership. It is very late.
However, better late than never • let us grant it. Oh, says
he, I do not want that now, 0 Caius Aquillius ; and I am not
troubling myself about that now : Publius Quintius has had
the use of my money for so many years ; let him use it, I do
not ask anything. What then are you contending for ? is it
with that object that you have often announced in many
places, — that he may no longer be a citizen ? that he may not
keep that rank which hitherto he has most honourably pre
served ] that he may not be counted among the living 1 that
he may be in peril of his life and all his honours ? that he
may have to plead his cause before the plaintiff speaks, and
that when he has ended his speech he may then hear the
voice of his accuser 1 What '? What is the object of this 1
That you may the quicker arrive at your rights 1 But if you
wished, that might be already done. That you may contend
according to a more respectable form of procedure 1 But you
cannot murder Publius Quintius, your own relation, without
the greatest wickedness. That the trial may be facilitated ?
But neither does Caius Aquillius willingly decide on the life
of another, nor has Quintus Hortensius been in the habit
of pleading against a man's life. But what reply is made by
us, 0 Caius Aquillius ? He asks for his money : we deny
that it is due. Let a trial take place instantly ; we mako
no objection ; is there anything more ? If he is afraid that
the money will not be forthcoming when the decision is given,
let him take security that it shall be ; and let him give
security1 for what I demand in the very same terms in which we
give security. The matter can be terminated at once, 0 Caius
Aquillius. You can at once depart, being delivered from
an annoyance, I had almost said, no less than that Quintius is
1 In many cases both plaintiff and defendant might be required to
give security, (satis dare.) Snrth, Diet. Ant. p. 10, v. Aclio.
16 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
exposed to. What are we doing, Hortensius 1 what are we to
say of this condition 1 Can we, some time or other, laying
aside our weapons, discuss the money matter without hazard
of any one's fortunes 1 Can we so prosecute our business, as
to leave the life of our relation in safety 1 Can we adopt the
character of a plaintiff, and lay aside that of an accuser ? Yes,
says he, I will take security from, you, but I will not give you
security.
XIV. But who is it that lays down for us these very
reasonable conditions ? who determines this, — that what is
just towards Quintius is unjust towards Nsevius ? The goods
of Quintius, says he, were taken possession of in accordance
with the edict of the prsetor. You demand then, that I should
admit that ; that we should establish by our own sentence,
as having taken place, that which we go to trial expressly
to prove never did take place. Can no means be found,
0 Caius Aquillius, for a man's arriving at his rights as expe-
ditiously as may be without the disgrace and infamy and ruin
of any one else 1 Forsooth, if anything were owed, he would
ask for it : he would not prefer that all sorts of trials should
take place, rather than that one from which all these arise. He,
who for so many years never even asked Quintius for the
money, when he had an opportunity of transacting business
with him every day ; he who, from the time when he first
began to behave ill, has wasted all the time in adjournments
and respiting the recognizances ; he who, after he had with
drawn his recognizances, drove Quintius by treachery and
violence from their joint estate ; who, when he had ample
opportunity, without any one's making objection, to try a
civil action,1 chose rather a charge that involved infamy;
who, when he is brought back to this tribunal, whence all
these proceedings arise, repudiates the most reasonable pro
posals ; confesses that he is aiming, not at the money, but at
the life and heart's blood of his adversary ; — does he not
openly say, " If anything were owing to me, I should demand
it, and I should long ago have obtained it ; I would not
employ so much trouble, so unpopular a course of legal pro-
1 With respect to its subject matter the actio was divided into two
great divisions, the inpersonam actio and the in rem actio. The former
was against a person who was bound to the plaintiff' by contract or delict ;
the latter applied to those cases where a man claimed a property or a
right. Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 7.
POK P. QUIXtlUS. 17
ceeding, and such a band of favourers of my cause, if I had
to make a just demand ; I have got to extort money from
one unwilling, and in spite of him; I have got to tear and
squeeze out of a man what he does not owe ; Publius Quin-
tius is to be cast down from all his fortune; every one who
is powerful, or eloquent, or noble, must be brought into
court with me ; a force must be put upon truth, threats must
be bandied about, dangers must be threatened ; terrors must
be brandished before his eyes, that being cowed and overcome
by these things, he may at last yield of his own accord." And,
in truth, all these things, when I see who are striving against
us, and when I consider the party sitting opposite to me,
seem to be impending over, and to be present to us, and to
be impossible to be avoided by any means. But when, 0
Caius Aquillius, I bring my eyes and my mind back to you,
the greater the labour and zeal with which all these things
are done, the more trifling and powerless do I think them.
Quintius then owed nothing, as you prove yourself. But
what if he had owed you anything ? would that have at once
been a reason for your requiring leave from the praetor to take
possession of his goods 1 I think that was neither according
to law, nor expedient for any one. What then does he prove I
He says that he had forfeited his recognizances.
XV. Before I prove that he had not done so, I choose,
0 Caius Aquillius, to consider both the fact itself and the
conduct of Sextus Noevius, with reference to the principles of
plain duty, and the common usages of men. He, as you say,
had not appeared to his recognizances ; he with whom you
were connected by relationship, by partnership, by every sort
of bond and ancient intimacy. Was it decent for you to go
at once to the pra3tor ? was it fair for you at once to demand
to be allowed to take possession of his goods according to the
edict 1 Did you betake yourself to these extreme measures
and to these most hostile laws with such eagerness as to leave
yourself nothing behind which you might be able to do still
more bitter and cruel 1 For, what could happen more shameful
to any human being, what more miserable or more bitter to a
man ; what disgrace could happen so heavy, what disaster
can be imagined so intolerable ? If fortune deprived any one
of money, or if the injustice of another took it from him,
still while his reputation is unimpeached, honour easily makes
c
18 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
amends for poverty. And some men, though stained with
ignominy, or convicted in discreditable trials, still enjoy their
wealth; are not forced to dance attendance (which is the
most wretched of all states) on the power of another ; and in
their distresses they are relieved by this support and comfort ;
but he whose goods have been sold, who has seen not merely
his ample estates, but even his necessary food and clothing put
up under the hammer, with great disgrace to himself; he is
not only erased from the list of men, but he is removed out
of sight, if possible, even beneath the dead. An honourable l
death forsooth often sets off even a base life, but a dishonoured
life leaves no room to hope for even an honourable death.
Therefore, in truth, when a man's goods are taken possession
of according to the praetor's edict, all his fame and reputation
is seized at the same time with his goods. A man about
whom placards are posted in the most frequented places, is
not allowed even to perish in silence and obscurity ; a man
who has assignees and trustees appointed to pronounce to him
on what terms and conditions he is to be ruined; a man
about whom the voice of the crier makes proclamation and
proclaims his price, — he has a most bitter funeral procession
while he is alive, if that may be considered a funeral in which
men meet not as friends to do honour to his obsequies, but
purchasers of his goods as executioners, to tear to pieces and
divide the relics of his existence.
XVI. Therefore our ancestors determined that such a thing-
should seldom happen ; the prsctors have taken care that it
should only happen after deliberation ; good men, even when
fraud is openly committed, when there is no opportunity of
trying the case at law, still have recourse to this measure
timidly and hesitatingly ; not till they are compelled by
force and necessity, unwillingly, when the recognizances have
often been forfeited, when they have been often deceived and
outwitted. For they consider how serious a matter it is to
confiscate the property of another. A good man is unwilling
to slay another, even according to law ; for he would rather
say that he had saved when he might have destroyed, than
that he had destroyed when he could have saved. Good men
1 Most of the commentators consider this passage corrupt, and
propose various emendations of it. I have however thought it safer
to adhere to the text of the MSS. as it stands in Orellius.
FOR P. QUINTIUS. 19
behave so to the most perfect strangers, aye, even to their
greatest enemies, for the sake both of their reputation among
men, and of the common rights of humanity; in order that,
as they have not knowingly caused inconvenience to another,
no inconvenience may lawfully befal them. He did not
appear to his recognizances. Who ? Your own relation. If
that matter appeared of the greatest importance in itself, yet
its magnitude would be lessened by the consideration of your
relationship. He did not appear to his recognizances. Who 1
Your partner. You might forgive even a greater thing than
this, to a man with whom either your inclination had con
nected you, or fortune had associated you. He did not appear
to his recognizances. Who 1 He who was always in your
company. You therefore have hurled upon him, who allowed
it. to happen once that he was not in your company, all those
weapons which have been forged against those who have done
many things for the sake of malversation and fraud. If your
poundage was called in question, if in any trifling matter you
"were afraid of'some trick, would you not have at once run off
to Caius Aquillius, or to some other counsel 1 When the
rights of friendship, of partnership, of relationship are at stake,
when regard should have been had to your duty and your
character, at that time you not only did not refer it to Caius
Aquillius or to Lrucius Lucilius, but you did not even consult
yourself; you did not even say this to yourself, — "The two
hours are passed ; Quintius^has not appeared to his recogni
zances ; what shall I do ?" If, in truth, you had said but
these four words to yourself, " What shall I do T your covet-
ousness and avarice would have had breathing time ; you
would have given some room for reason and prudence ; you
would have recollected yourself; you would not have come
to such baseness as to be forced to confess before such men
that in the same hour in which he did not appear to his
recognizances you took counsel how utterly to ruin the for
tunes of your relation.
XVII. I now on your behalf consult these men, after the
time has passed, and in an affair which is not mine, since you
forgot to consult them in your own affair, and when it was
the proper time. I ask of you, Caius Aquillius, Lucius Luci
lius, Publius Quintilius, and Marcus Marcellus; — A certain
partner and relation of mine has not appeared to his recog-
20 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
nizances, a man with -whom I have a long standing intimacy,
but a recent dispute about money matters. Can I demand
of the prsetor to be allowed to take possession of his goods ]
Or must I, as he has a house, a wife, and children at Rome,
not rather give notice at his house 1 What is your opinion in
this matter ? If, in truth, I have rightly understood your
kindness and prudence, I am not much mistaken what you
will answer if you are consulted. You will say at first that I
must wait ; then, if he seems to be shirking the business and
to be trifling with it too long, that I must have a meeting of
our friends ; must ask who his agent is ; must give notice at
his house. It can hardly be told how many steps there are
which you would make answer ought to be taken before
having recourse to this extreme and unnecessary course.
What does Nsevius say to all this ? Forsooth, he laughs at
our madness in expecting a consideration of the highest duty,
or looking for the practices of good mer in his conduct. What
have I to do, says he, with all this sanctimoniousness and
punctiliousness 1 Let good men, says he, look to these diities,
but let them think of me thus ; let them ask not what I
have, but by what means I have acquired it, and in what
rank I was born, and in what manner I was brought up. I
remember, there is an old proverb about a buffoon ; " that it
is a much easier thing for him to become rich than to become
the head of a family." This is what he says openly by his
actions, if he does not dare to say it in words. If in truth he
wishes to live according to the practices of good men, he has
many things to learn and to unlearn, both which things are
difficult to a man of his age.
XVIII. I did not hesitate, says he, when the recognizances
were forfeited, to claim the confiscation of his goods. It was
wickedly done; but since you claim this for yourself, and
demand that it be granted to you, let us grant it. What
if he has not forfeited his recognizances'? if the whole of that
plea has been invented by you with the most extreme dis
honesty and wickedness? if there had actually been no secu
rities given in any cause between you and Publius Quintius]
What shall we call you1? Wicked? why, even if the recog
nizances had been forfeited, yet in making such a demand and
confiscation of his goods, you were proved to be most wicked.
Malignant? you do not deny it. Dishonest? you have already
FOR P. QUIimUS. 21
claimed that as your character, and you think it a fine thing.
Audacious1? covetous1? perfidious1? those are vulgar and worn-
out imputations, but this conduct is novel and unheard-of.
What then are we to say? I fear forsooth lest I should either
use language severer than men's nature is inclined to bear, or
else more gentle than the cause requires. You say that the
recognizances were forfeited. Quintius the moment he re
turned to Home asked you on what day the recognizances
were drawn. You answered at once, on the fifth of February.
Quintius, when departing, began to recollect on what day he
left Rome for Gaul: he goes to his journal, he finds the day
of his departure set down, the thirty-first of January. If he
was at Rome on the fifth of February we have nothing to say
against his having entered into recognizances with you. What
then? how can this be found out? Lucius Albius went with
him, a man of the highest honour; he shall give his evidence.
Some friends accompanied both Albius and Quintius; they
also shall give their evidence. Shall the letters of Publius
Quintius, shall so many witnesses, all having the most unde
niable reason for being able to know the truth, and no reason
for speaking falsely, be compared with your witness to the
recognizance? And shall Publius Quintius be harassed in a
cause like this? and shall he any longer be subjected to the
misery of such fear and danger? and shall the influence of
an adversary alarm him more than the integrity of the judge
comforts him? For he always lived in an unpolished and
uncompanionable manner; he was of a melancholy and un
sociable disposition ; he has not frequented the Forum, or the
Campus, or banquets. He so lived as to retain his friends by
attention, and his property by economy ; he loved the ancient
system of duty, all the splendour of which has grown obsolete
according to present fashions. But if, in a cause where the
merits were equal, he seemed to come off the worse, that
would be in no small degree to be complained of; but now.
when he is in the right, he does not even demand to come off
best; he submits to be worsted, only with these limitations,
that he is not to be given up with his goods, his character,
and all his fortunes, to the covetousness and cruelty of Sextus
Nsevius,
XIX. I have proved what I first promised to prove, O
Caius Aquillius, that there was absolutely no cause why he
22 CICERO'S ORATIOXS.
should make this demand; that neither was any money owed,
and that if it were owed ever so much, nothing had been done
to excuse recourse being had to such measures as these. Re
mark now, that the goods of Publius Quintius could not pos
sibly have been taken possession of in accordance with the
praetor's edict. Recite the edict. " He who for the sake of fraud
has lain hid." That is not Quintius, unless they be hid who
depart on their own business, leaving an agent behind them.
" The man who has no heir." Even that is not he. " The
man who leaves the country in exile." At what time, 0
Nsevius, do you think Quintius ought to have been defended
in his absence, or how? Then, when you were demanding
leave to take possession of his goods? No one was present,
for no one could guess that you were going to make such a
demand; nor did it concern any one to object to that which
the prsetor ordered not to be done absolutely, but to be done
according to his edict. What was the first opportunity, then,
which was given to the agent of defending this absent man?
When you were putting up the placards. Then Sextus Al-
phenus was present: he did not permit it; he tore down the
notices. That which was the first step of duty was observed
by the agent with the greatest diligence. Let us see what
followed on this. You arrest the servant of Publius Quintius
in public : you attempt to take him away. Alphenus does not
permit it ; he takes him from you by force ; he takes care that
he is led home to Quintius. Here too is seen in a high degree
the attention of an industrious agent. You say that Quintius
is in your debt ; his agent denies it. You wish security to be
given; he promises it. You call him into court; he follows
you. You demand a trial; he does not object. What other
could be the conduct of one defending a man in his absence
I do not understand. But who was the agent? I suppose it
was some insignificant man, poor, litigious, worthless, who
might be able to endure the daily abuse of a wealthy buffoon.
Nothing of the sort : he was a wealthy Roman knight ; a man
managing his own affairs well : he was, in short, the man whom
Nsevius himself, as often as he went into Gaul, left as his agent
at Home.
XX. And do you dare, 0 Sextus Nsevius, to deny that
Quintius was defended in his absence, when the same man
defended him who used to defend you? and when he accepted
FOB P. QUINTIUS. 23
the trial on behalf of Quintius, to whom when departing you
used to recommend and entrust your own property and cha
racter? Do you attempt to say that there was no one who
defended Quintius at the trial? " I demanded," says he, " that
security should be given." You demanded it unjustly. "The
order was made." Alphenus objected. " He did, but the
praetor mado the decree." Therefore the tribunes were ap
pealed to. " Here," said he, " I have you : that is not allow
ing a trial, nor defending a man at a trial, when you ask
assistance from the tribunes." • When I consider how prudent
Hortensius is, I do not think that he will say this ; but when
I hear that he has said so before, and when I consider the
cause itself, I do not see what else he can say; for he admits
that Alphenus tore down the bills, undertook to give security,
did not object to go to trial in the very terms which Nsevius
proposed ; but on this condition, that according to custom and
prescription, it should be before that magistrate who was ap
pointed in order to give assistance.
You must either say that these things are not so ; or that
Caius Aquillius, being such a man as he is, on his oath, is to
establish this law in the state : that he whose agent does not
object to every trial which any one demands against him,
whose agent dares to appeal from the praetor to the tribunes,
is not defended at all, and may rightly have his goods taken
possession of; may properly, while miserable, absent, and igno
rant of it, have all the embellishments of his fortunes, all the
ornaments of his life, taken from him with the greatest dis
grace and ignominy. And this seems reasonable to no one.
This certainly must be proved to the satisfaction of every one,
that Quintius while absent was defended at the trial. And as
that is the case, his goods were not taken possession of in ac
cordance with the edict. But then, the tribunes of the people
did not even hear his cause. I admit, if that be the case,
that the agent ought to have obeyed the decree of the prsetor.
What ; if Marcus Brutus openly said that he would inter
cede l unless some agreement was come to between Alphenus
himself and Nsevius ; does not the appeal to the tribunes
seem to have been interposed not for the sake of delay but of
assistance ?
1 Intercede was the technical word for the interposition of the
tribunes.
24 CICERO S ORATIONS.
XXI. What is done next1? Alphenus, in order that all men
might see that Quintius was defended at the trial, that no
suspicion might exist unfavourable either to his own duty, or
to his principal's character, summons many excellent men,
and, in the hearing of that fellow, calls them to witness that
he begs this of him, in the first place, out of regard to their
common intimacy, that he would not attempt to take any
severe steps against Quintius in his absence without cause ; but
if he persevered in carrying on the contest in a most spiteful
and hostile manner, that he is prepared by every upright and
honourable method to defend him, and to prove that what he
demanded was not owed, and that he accepted the trial which
Nsevius proposed. Many excellent men signed the document
setting forth this fact and these conditions. While all matters
are still unaltered, while the goods are neither advertised nor
taken possession of, Alphenus promises Nsevius that Quintius
should appear to his recognizances. Quiutius does appear to
his recognizances. The matter lies in dispute- while that
fellow is spreading his calumnies for two years, until he could
find out by what means the affair might be diverted out of
the common course of proceeding, and the whole cause be
confined to this single point to which it is now limited. What
duty of an agent can possibly be mentioned, 0 Caius Aquil-
lius, which seems to have been overlooked by Alphenus ?
What reason is alleged why it should be denied that Publius
Quintius was defended in his absence? Is it that which I
suppose Hortensius will allege, because he has lately men
tioned it, and because Nsevius is always harping on it, that
Nseviuswas not contending on equal terms with Alphenus, at
such a time, and with such magistrates? And if I were wil
ling to admit that, they will, 1 suppose, grant this, that it is
not the case that no one was the agent of Publius Quintius,
but that he had one who was popular. But it is quite suffi
cient for me to prove that there was an agent, with whom he
could have tried the matter. What sort of man he was, as
long as he defended the man in his absence, according to law
and before the proper magistrate, I think has nothing to do
with the matter. " For he was," says he, " a man of the op
posite party." No doubt] a man who had been brought up
in your house, whom you from a youth had so trained up
as not to favour any one of eminence, not even a gladi-
FOR P. QUINTIUS. 25
ator.' if Alphenus had the same wish as you always especially
entertained, was not the contest between you on equal terms in
that matter? " Oh," says he, " he was an intimate friend of
"Brutus, and therefore he interposed." You on the other hand
were an intimate friend of Burrienus, who gave an unjust de
cision; and, in short, of all those men who at that time were
both very powerful with violence and wickedness, and who
dared do all that they could. Did you wish to overcome those
men, who now are labouring with such zeal that you may be
victorioiis? Dare to say that, not openly, but to these very
men whom you have brought with you. Although I am un
willing to bring that matter up again by mentioning it, every
recollection of which I think ought to be entirely effaced and
destroyed.
XXII. This one thing I say, if Alphenus was an influential
man because of his party zeal, Nsevius was most influential ;
if Alphenus, relying on his personal interest, made any rather
unjust demand. Nsevius demanded, and obtained too, things
much more unjust. Nor was there, as I think, any difference
between your zeal. In ability, in experience, in cunning, you
easily surpassed him. To say nothing of other things, this is
sufficient : Alphenus was ruined with those men, and for the
sake of those men to whom he was attached; you, after those
men who were your friends could not get the better, took care
that those who did get the better should be your friends.
But if you think you had not then the same justice as Al
phenus, because it was in his power to appeal to some one
against you ; because a magistrate was found before whom the
cause of Alphenus could be fairly heard; what is Quintius to
determine on at this time? — a man who has not as yet found
any just magistrate, nor been able to procure the customary
trial ; 2 in whose case no condition, no security, no petition
lias been interposed, — I do not say a just one, but none at all
that had ever been heard of before that time. I wish to try
an action about money. You cannot. But that is the point
in dispute. It does not concern me; you must plead to a
1 The text is undoubtedly corrupt here. Some read " hsereret," some
" cederet." I have adopted the text of Orellius ; but the meaning is not
very plain.
3 " Because the matter in dispute was really a money matter, but the
praetor ordered the trial to proceed deprobro." — Hottoman.
26 CICERO S ORATIONS.
capital charge. Accuse me then, if it must be so. No,
says he, not xinless you, in an unprecedented manner, first
make your defence. You must plead ; the time must be
fixed at our pleasure; the judge himself shall be removed.
What then? Shall you be able to find any advocate, a man
of such ancient principles of duty as to despise our splendour
and influence1? Lucius Philippus will be my advocate; in
eloquence, in dignity, and in honour, the most nourishing man
in the state. Hortensius will speak for me ; a man eminent
for his genius, and nobility, and reputation; and other most
noble and powerful men will accompany me into court, the
number and appearance of whom may alarm not only Publius
Quintius, who is defending himself on a capital charge, but
even any one who is out of danger. This really is what an
unequal contest is ; not that one in which you were skirmish
ing against Alphenus. You did not leave him any place
where he could make a stand against you. You must there
fore either prove that Alphenus denied he was his agent, did
not tear down the bills, and refused to go to trial; or, if all
this was done, you must admit that you did not take posses
sion of the goods of Publius Quintius in accordance with
the edict.
XXIII. If, indeed, you did take possession of the things
according to the edict, I ask you why they were not sold —
why the others who were his securities and creditors did not
meet together ? Was there no one to whom Quintius owed
money 1 There were some, there were many such ; because
Caius, his brother, had left some amount of debt behind him.
What then was the reason ? They were all men entirely
strangers to him, and he owed them money, and yet not one
was found so notoriously infamous as to dare to attack the
character of Publius Quintius in his absence. There was one
man, his relation, his partner, his intimate friend, Sextus
Nsevius, who, though he himself was in reality in debt to him,
as if some extraordinary prize of wickedness was proposed to
him, strove with the greatest eagerness to deprive his own
relation, oppressed and ruined by his means, not only of pro
perty which he had honestly acquired, but even of that light
which is common to all men. Where were the rest of the
creditors 1 Even now at this veiy time where are they 1 Who
is there who says he kept out of the way for the sake of fraud]
FOR P. QUINTIUS. 27
Who is there who denies that Quintius was defended in his
absence ? Not one is found. But, on the other hand, all
men who either have or have had any transactions with him.
are present on his behalf, and are defending him ; they are
labouring that his good faith, known in many places, may not
now be disparaged by the perfidy of Sextus Nsevius. In a trial
of this nature Nsevius ought to have brought some witnesses
out of that body, who could say ; " He forfeited his recogni
zances in my case ; he cheated me, he begged a day of me for
the payment of a debt which he had denied ; could not get
him to trial ; he kept out of the way ; he left no agent :"
none of all these things is said. Witnesses are being got
ready to say it. But we shall examine into that, I suppose,
when they have said it : but let them consider this one thing,
that they are of weight only so far, that they can preserve
that weight, if they also preserve the truth; if they neglect
that, they are so insignificant that all men may see that in
fluence is of avail not to support a lie, but only to prove the
truth.
XXIV. I ask these two questions. First of all, on what
account Nsevius did not complete the business he had under
taken ; that is, why he did not sell the goods which he had
taken possession of in accordance with the edict : Secondly,
why out of so many other creditors no one reinforced his
demand ; so that you must of necessity confess that neither
was any one of them so rash, and that you yourself were un
able to persevere in and accomplish that which you had most
infamously begun. What if you yourself, 0 Sextus Neevius,
decided that the goods of Publius Quintius had not been
taken possession of according to the edict 1 I conceive that
your evidence, which in a matter which did not concern your
self would be very worthless, ought to be of the greatest
weight in an affair of your own when it makes against you.
You bought the goods of Sextus Alphenus when Lucius Sylla,
the dictator, sold them. You entered Quintius in your books
as the partner in the purchase of these goods. I say no more.
Did you enter into a voluntary partnership with that man
who had cheated in a partnership to which he had succeeded
1 Nomen is especially used in reference to debts, because not only the
amount of the debts, but also the name of the debtor is entered in the
account books. Kiddle's Diet, in r. Nomen.
28 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
by inheritance ; and did you by your own sentence approve
of the man who you thought was stripped of his character
and of all his fortunes 1 I had fears indeed, 0 Caius Aquillius,
that I could not stand my ground in this cause with a mind
sufficiently fortified and resolute. I thought thus, that, as
Horterisius was going to speak against me, and as Philip was
going to listen to me carefully, I should through fear stumble
in many particulars. I said to Quintus Roscius here, whose
sister is the wife of Publius Quintius. when he asked of me,
and, with the greatest earnestness, entreated me to defend his
relation, that it was very difficult for me, not only to sum
up a cause against such orators, but even to attempt to
speak at all. When he pressed it more eagerly, I said to the
man very familiarly, as our friendship justified, that a man
appeared to me to have a very brazen face, who, while he was
present, could attempt to use action in speaking, but those
who contended with him himself, even though before that
they seemed to have any skill or elegance, lost it, and that I
was afraid lest something of the same sort would happen to
me when I was going to speak against so great an artist.
XXV. Then Roscius said many other things with a view to
encourage me, and in truth, if he were to say nothing he
would still move any one by the very silent affection and zeal
which he felt for his relation. In truth, as he is an artist of
that sort that he alone seems worthy of being looked at when
he is on the stage, so he is also a man of such a sort that he
alone seems to deserve never to go thither. " But what," says
he, " if you have such a cause as this, that you have only to
make this plain, that there is no one in two or three days at
most can walk seven hundred miles ? Will you still fear that
you will not be able to argue this point against Hortensius?"
" No," said I. " But what is that to the purpose 1 " " In truth,"
said he, " that is what the cause turns upon." " How so ]" He
then explains to me an affair of that sort, and at the same time
an action of Sextus Nsevius, which, if that alone were alleged,
ought to be sufficient. And I beg of you, 0 Caius Aquillius,
and of you the assessors, that you will attend to it carefully.
You will see, in truth, that on the one side there were en
gaged from the very beginning covetousness and audacity,
that on the other side truth and modesty resisted as long as
they could. You demand to be allowed to take possession of
FOR P. QUINTIUS. 29
his goods according to the edict. On what day 1 I wish to
hear you yourself, 0 Neevius. I want this unheard-of action
to be proved by the voice of the very man who has committed
it. Mention the day, Nsevius. The twentieth of February.
Right . how far is it from hence to your estate in Gaul ? I
ask you, Neevius. Seven hundred miles. Very well : Quiu-
tius is driven off the estate. On what day 1 May we hear
this also from you ? Why are you silent 1 Tell me the day,
I say.— He is ashamed to speak it. I understand ; but he is
ashamed too late, and to no purpose. He is driven off the
estate on the twenty-third of February, 0 Caius Aquillius.
Two days afterwards, or, even if any one had set off and run
the moment he left the court, in under three days, he accom
plishes seven hundred miles. 0 incredible thing ! 0 incon
siderate covetousness ! 0 winged messenger ! The agents
and satellites of Sextus Nsevius come from Rome, across the
Alps, among the Segusiani in two days. 0 happy man who
has such messengers, or rather Pegasi.
XXVI. Here I, even if all the Crassi were to stand forth
with all the Antonies, if yon, 0 Lucius Philippus, who
flourished among those men, choose to plead this cause, with
Hortensius for your colleague, yet I must get the best of it.
For everything does not depend, as you two think it does, on
eloquence. There is still some truth so manifest that nothing
can weaken it. Did you, before you made the demand to be
allowed to take possession of his goods, send any one to take
care that the master should be driven by force off the estate
by his own slaves 1 Choose whichever you like ; the one is
incredible ; the other abominable ; and both are unheard-of
before this time. Do you mean that any one ran over seven
hundred miles in two days ? Tell me. Do you deny it ?
Then you sent some one beforehand. I had rather you did.
For if you were to say that, you would be seen to tell an
impudent lie : when you confess this, you admit that you did
a thing which you cannot conceal even by a lie. Will such
a design, so covetous, so audacious, so precipitate, be approved
of by Aquillius and by such men as he is 1 What does this
madness, what does this haste, what does this precipitation
intimate ? Does it not prove violence 1 does it not prove
wickedness ? does it not prove robbery ? does it not, in short,
prove everything rather than right, than duty, or than mo-
30 CICERO S ORATIONS.
desty? You send some one without the command of the
preetor. With what intention 1 You knew he would order
it. What then ? When he had ordered it, could you not
have sent then? You were about to ask him. When? Thirty
days after. Yes, if nothing hindered you ; if the same in
tention existed ; if you were well ; in short, if you were alive.
The praetor would have made the order, I suppose, if he
chose, if he was well, if he was in court, if no one objected,
by giving security according to his decree, and by being
willing to stand a trial. For, by the immortal gods, if
Alphenus, the agent of Publius Quintius, were then willing to
give security and to stand a trial, and in short to do every
thing which you chose, what would you do ? Would you
recal him whom you had sent into Gaul? But this man
would have been already expelled from his farm, already driven
headlong from his home, already (the most unworthy thing of
all) assaulted by the hands of his own slaves, in obedience to
your messenger and command. You would, forsooth, make
amends for these things afterwards. Do you dare to speak
of the life of any man, you who must admit this, — that you
were so blinded by covetousness and avarice, that, though you
did not know what would happen afterwards, but many things
might happen, you placed your hope from a present crime in
the uncertain event of the future ? And I say this, just as if,
at that very time when the prsetor had ordered you to take
possession according to his edict, you had sent any one to
take possession, you either ought to, or could have ejected
Publius Quiutius from possession.
XXVII. Everything, 0 Caius Aquillius, is of such a nature
that any one may be able to perceive that in this cause dis
honesty and interest are contending with poverty and truth.
How did the praetor order you to take possession ? I sup
pose, in accordance with his edict. In what words was the
recognizance drawn up ? " If the goods of Publius Quintius
have been taken possession of in accordance with the prsetor's
edict." Let us return to the edict. How does that enjoin you
to take possession ? Is there any pretence, 0 Caius Aquillius,
if he took possession in quite a different way from that which
the praetor enjoined, for denying that then he did not take
possession according to the edict, but that I have beaten him
in the trial ? None, I imagine. Let us refer to the edict : —
FOB P. QUINTIUS. 31
" They who in accordance with my edict have come into pos
session." He is speaking of you, Nsevius, as you think ; for
you say that you came into possession according to the edict.
He defines for you what you are to do ; he instructs you ; he
gives you precepts. " It seems that those ought to be in pos
session." How 1 " That which they can rightly secure in
the place where they now are, let them secure there ; that
which they cannot, they may carry or lead away." "What
then 1 " It is not right," says he, " to drive away the owner
against his will." The very man who with the object of
cheating is keeping out of the way, the very man who deals
dishonestly with all his creditors, he forbids to be driven off
his farm against his will. As you are on your way to take
possession, 0 Sextus Neevius, the praetor himself openly says
to you — " Take possession in such manner that Naevius may
have possession at the same time with you ; take possession,
in such a manner that no violence may be offered to Quin-
tius." What 1 how do you observe that ] I say nothing of
his not having been a man who was keeping out of the way,
of his being a man who had a house, a wife, children, and an
agent at Rome ; I say nothing of all this : I say this, that
the owner was expelled frond his . farm ; that hands were laid
on their master by his own slaves, before his own household
gods ; I say
* * * * * *
XXVIII. I say too that Ntevius never even asked Quintius
for the money, when he was with him, and might have sued
him every day ; because he preferred that all the most per
plexing modes of legal proceedings shoiild take place, to his
own great discredit, and to the greatest danger of Publius
Quintius, rather than allow of the simple trial about money
mai±s>s which could have been got through in one day ; from
which one trial he admits that all these arose and proceeded.
On which occasion I offered a condition, if he was determined
to demand the money, that Publius Quintius should give
security to submit to the decision, if he also, if Quintius had
any demands upon him, would submit to the like conditions.
I showed how many things ought to be done before a demand
was made that the goods of a relation should be taken posses
sion of; especially when he had at Rome his house, his wife,
his children, and an agent who was equally an intimate friend
32 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
of both. I proved that when he said the recognizances were
forfeited, there were actually no recognizances at all ; that on
the day on which he says he gave him the promise, he was
not even at Rome. I promised that I would make that plain
by witnesses, who both must know the truth, and who had no
reason for speaking falsely. I proved also thai it was not
possible that the goods should have been taken possession of
according to the edict ; because he was neither said to have
kept out of the way for the purpose of fraud, nor to have left
the country in banishment. The charge remains, that no one
defended him at the trial. In opposition to which I argued
that he was most abundantly defended, arid that not by a man
unconnected with him, nor by any slanderous or worthless
person, but by a Roman knight, his own relation and intimate
friend, whom Sextus Nsevius himself had been accustomed
previously to leave as his own agent. And that even if he
did appeal to the tribunes, he was not on that account the
less prepared to submit to a trial ; and that Nsevius had not
had his rights wrested from him by the powerful interest of
the agent ; that on the other hand he was so much superior
to us in interest that he now scarcely gives us the liberty of
breathing.
XXIX. I asked what the reason was why the goods had not
been sold, since they had been taken possession of according
to the edict. Secondly, I asked this also, on what account
not one of so many creditors either did the same thing then,
why not one speaks against him now, but why they are all
striving for Publius Quintius 1 Especially when in such a
trial the testimonies of creditors are thought exceedingly
material. After that, I employed the testimony of the adver
sary, who lately entered as his partner the man who, according
to the language of his present claim,1 he demonstrates was at
that time not even in the number of living men. Then I
mentioned that incredible rapidity, or rather audacity of his.
I showed that it was inevitable, either that seven hundred
miles had been run over in two days, or that Sextus Nsevius
had sent men to take possession many days before he de
manded leave so to seize his goods. After that I recited the
edict, which expressly forbade the owner to be driven off his
1 Tntentio was the technical legal term for the claim made by the
plaint' ff.
FOB P. QUINTIUS. 33
estate, by which it was plain that Naevius had not taken pos
session according to the edict, as he confessed that Quintius
had been driven off his farm by force. But I thoroughly
proved that the goods had actually not been taken possession
of, because such a seizure of goods is looked at not as to part,
but with respect to everything which can be seized or taken
possession of. I said that he had a house at Borne which
that fellow never even made an attempt on ; that he had
many slaves, of which he neither took possession of any, and
did not even touch any; that there was one whom he
attempted to touch ; that he was forbidden to, and that he
remained quiet. You know also that Sextus Nsevius never
came on to the private farms of Quintius even in Gaul.
Lastly I proved that the private servants of Quintius were
not all driven away from that very estate which he took
possession of, having expelled his partner by force. From
which, and from all the other sayings, and actions, and
thoughts of Sextus Naevius, any one can understand that
that fellow did nothing else, and is now doing nothing, but
endeavouring by violence, by injustice, and by unfair means
at this-trial, to make the whole farm his own which belongs
to both partners in common.
XXX. Now that I have summed up the whole cause, the
affair itself and the magnitude of the danger, 0 Caius Aquil
iius, seem to make it necessary for Publius Quintius to solicit
.and entreat you and your colleagues, by his old age and his
desolate condition, merely to follow the dictates of your own
nature and goodness ; so that as the truth, is on his side, his
necessitous state may move you to. pity, rather than the
influence of the other party to cruelty. From the self-same
•day when we came before you as judge, we began to dis
regard all the threats of those men, which before we were
, alarmed at. If cause was to contend with cause, we were
sure that we could easily prove ours to any one ; but as the
course of life of the one was to be contrasted with the course
of life of the other, we thought we had on that account even
more need of you as our judge. For this is the very point
now in question, whether the rustic and unpolished economy
.of my client can defend itself against the luxury and licen-
.tiousness of the other, or whether, homely as it is, and stripped
of .all ornaments, it is to be handed over naked to covetousness
P
34 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
and wantonness. Publius Nssvius does not compare himself
with you, 0 Sextus Nsevius, he does not vie with you in riches
or power. He gives up to you all the arts by which you are
great ; he confesses that he does not speak elegantly ; that he
is not able to say pleasant things to people ; that he does not
abandon a friendship when his friend is in distress, and fly off
to another which is in flourishing circumstances ; that he
does not give magnificent and splendid banquets ; that he has
not a house closed against modesty and holiness, but open
and as it were exposed to cupidity and debauchery ; on the
other hand he says that duty, good faith, industry, and a life
which has been always austere and void of pleasure has been
his choice ; he knows that the opposite course is more fashion
able, and that by such habits people have more influence.
What then shall be done 1 They have not so much more
influence, that those who, having abandoned the strict dis
cipline of virtuous men, have chosen rather to follow the
gains and extravagance of Gallonius,1 and have even spent
their lives in audacity and perfidy which were no part of his
character, should have absolute dominion over the lives and
fortunes of honourable men. If he may be allowed to live
where Sextus Nsevius does not wish to, if there is room in the
city for an honest man against the will of Nsevius ; if Publius
Quintius may be allowed to breathe in opposition to the nod
and sovereign power of Nsevius ; if, under your protection, he
can preserve in opposition to the insolence of his enemy the
ornaments which he has acquired by virtue, there is hope
that this unfortunate and wretched man may at last be able
to rest in peace. But if Nsevius is to have power to do every
thing he chooses, and if he chooses what is unlawful, what is
to be done ? What God is to be appealed to ] The faith of
what man can we invoke 1 WThat complaints, what lamenta
tions can be devised adequate to so great a calamity.
XXXI. It is a miserable thing to be despoiled of all one's
fortunes ; it is more miserable still to be so unjustly. It is a
bitter thing to be circumvented by any one, more bitter still
to be so by a relation. It is a calamitous thing to be stripped
1 Gallonius was a crier also, branded by Horace as notorious for ex
travagance and luxury.
" Gallonl prseconis erat acipensere mensa
Infamis." — Hor. Sat. ii. 2. 47.
FOE P. QUINTIUS. 35
of one's goods, more calamitous still if accompanied by dis
grace. It is an intolerable injury to be slain by a brave and
honourable man, more intolerable still to be slain by one
whose voice has been prostituted to the trade of a crier. It
is an unworthy thing to be conquered by one's equal or one's
superior, more unworthy still by one's inferior, by one lower
than oneself. It is a grievous thing to be handed over with
one's goods to another, more grievous still to be handed over
to an enemy. It is a horrible thing to have to plead to a
capital charge, more horrible still to have to speak in one's
own defence before one's accuser speaks. Quintius has looked
round on all sides, has encountered every danger. He was
not only unable to find a praetor from whom he could obtain
a trial, much less one from whom he could obtain one on his
own terms, but he could not even move the friends of Sextus
Neevius, at whose feet he often lay, and that for a long time,
entreating them by the immortal Gods either to contest the
point with him according to law, or at least, if they must do
him injustice, to do it without ignominy. Last of all he
approached the haughty countenance of his very enemy ;
weeping he took the hand of Sextus Neevius, well practised
in advertising the goods of his relations. He entreated him
by the ashes of his dead brother, by the name of their rela
tionship, by his own wife and children, to whom no one is a
nearer relation than Publius Quintius, at length to take pity
on him, to have some regard, if not for their relationship, at
least for his age, if not for a man, at least for humanity ; to
terminate the matter on any conditions, as long as they were
only endurable, leaving his character unimpeached. Being
rejected by him, getting no assistance from his friends, being
harassed and frightened by every magistrate, he has no one
but you whom he can appeal to. To you he commends him
self, to you he commends all his property and fortunes; to
you he commends his character and his hopes for the re
mainder of his life. Harassed by much contumely, suffering
under many injuries, he flies to you, not unworthy but unfor
tunate ; driven out of a beautiful farm, with his enemies
attempting to fix every possible mark of ignominy on him,
seeing his adversary the owner of his paternal property, while
he himself is unable to make up a dowry for his marriageable
daughter, he has still done nothing inconsistent with his
ob CICEUOS ORATIONS.
former life. Therefore he begs this of you, O Cains Aquiilius,
that he may be allowed to carry with him out of this place
the character and the probity which, now that his life is
nearly come to an end, he brought with him before your
tribunal. That lie, of whose virtue no one ever doubted, may
not in his sixtieth year be branded with disgrace, with stigma,
and with the most shameful ignominy; that Sextus IV.cviua
may not array himself in all his ornaments as spoils of victory ;
that it may not be owing to you that the character, which
has accompanied Fublius Quintius to his old age, does not
attend him to the tomb.
uoscius. 37
THE ORATION FOR SEXTUS UOSCIUS OF AMEPJA.
THE ARGUMENT.
Cicero himself in this speech calls this trial the first public, that is
criminal cause in which he was engaged ; and many critics consider
it an earlier speech than the preceding one for Qumtius. The case
was this : The father of Sextus lioscius had been slain during the
proscriptions of Sylla, and his estate, which was very large, had been
sold for a very trifling sum to Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus, a
favourite slave to whom Sylla had given his freedom ; and Chryso
gonus, to secure possession of it, persuaded a man named Caius Eruciu.-*
to accuse Roscius of having killed his father himself. Many lawyers
refused to defend him, being afraid of Sylla, whose influence was
openly used for his freedman. Roscius was acquitted. Cicero often
refers with great complacency to his conduct in this suit, as a proof
of his intrepidity, and of his resolute honesty in discharging the
duties of an advocate without being dismayed at the opposition of the
greatest men in Rome.
I. I IMAGINE that you, 0 Judges, are marvelling why it is
that when so many most eminent orators and most noble men
are sitting still, I above all others should get up, who neither
for age, nor for ability, nor for influence, am to be compared
to those who are sitting still. For all these men whom you
see present at this trial think that a man ought to be defended
against an injury contrived against him by unrivalled wicked
ness ; biit through the sad state of the times they do not dare
to defend him themselves. So it comes to pass that they are
present here because they are attending to their business, but
they are silent because they are afraid of danger. What then?
Am I the boldest of all these men 1 By no means. Am I then
so much more attentive to my duties than the rest ? I am
not so covetous of even that praise, as to wish to rob others of
it. What is it then which has impelled me beyond all the
rest to undertake the cause of Sextus Roscius 1 Because, if
any one of those men, men of the greatest weight and dignity,
whom you see present, had spoken, had said one word about
public affairs, as must be done in this cause, he would be
thought to have said much more than he really had said ; but
38 CICEKO'S ORATIONS.
if I should say all the things -which must be said with ever so
much freedom, yet my speech will never go forth or be diffused
among the people in the same manner. Secondly, because
anything said by the others cannot be obscure, because of their
nobility and dignity, and cannot be excused as being spoken
carelessly, on account of their age and prudence ; but if I say
anything with too much freedom, it may either be altogether
concealed, because I have not yet mixed in public affairs, or
pardoned on account of my youth ; although not only the
method of pardoning, but even the habit of examining into the
truth is now eradicated from the State. There is this reason,
also, that perhaps the request to undertake this cause was
made to the others so that they thought they could comply
or refuse without prejudice to their duty; but those men
applied to me who have the greatest weight with me by reason
of their friendship with me, of the kindnesses they have done
me, and of their own dignity ; whose kindness to me I could
not be ignorant of, whose authority I could not despise, whose
desires I could not neglect.
II. On these accounts I have stood forward as the advocate
in this cause, not as being the one selected who could plead
with the greatest ability, but as the one left of the whole
body who could do so with the least danger ; and not in
order that Sextus Roscius might be defended by a sufficiently
able advocacy, but that he might not be wholly abandoned.
Perhaps you may ask, What is that dread, and what is that
alarm which hinders so many, and such eminent men, from
being willing, as they usually are, to plead on behalf of the
life and fortunes of another ? And it is not strange that you
are as yet ignorant of this, because all mention of the matter
which has given rise to this trial has been designedly omitted
by the accusers. What is that matter ? The property of the
father of this Sextus Roscius, which is six millions of sesterces,1
which one of the most powerful young men of our city at this
present time, Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus, says he bought of
that most gallant and most illustrious man Lucius Sylla, whom
1 only name to do him honour, for two thousand sesterces. He,
0 judges, demands of you that, since he, without any right, has
taken possession of the property of another, so abundant and so
splendid, and as the life of Sextus Roscius appears to him to
1 Between fifty and sixty thousand pounds of our money.
FOB S. ROSCIUS. 39
stand in the way of, and to hinder his possession of that
property, you will efface from his mind every suspicion, and
remove all his fear. He does not think that, while this man
is safe, he himself can keep possession of the ample and
splendid patrimony of this innocent man ; but if he be con
victed and got rid of, he hopes he may be able to waste and
squander in luxury what he has acquired by wickedness. He
begs that you will take from his mind this uneasiness which
day and night is pricking and harassing him, so as to profess
yourselves his assistants in enjoying this his nefariously
acquired booty. If his demand seems to you just and
honourable, 0 judges, I, on the other hand, proffer this
brief request, and one, as I persuade myself, somewhat more
reasonable still.
III. First of all, I ask of Chrysogonus to be content with oxir
money and our fortunes, and not to seek our blood and our
lives. In the second place, I beg you, 0 judges, to resist the
wickedness of audacious men ; to relieve the calamities of the
innocent, and in the cause of Sextus Roscius to repel the
danger which is being aimed at every one. But if any pre
tence for the accusation — if any suspicion of this act — if, in
short, any, the least thing be found, — so that in bringing for
ward this accusation they shall seem to have had some real
object, — if you find any cause whatever for it, except that
plunder which I have mentioned, I will not object to the life
of Sextus Roscius being abandoned to their pleasure. But if
there is no other object in it, except to prevent anything
being wanting to those men, whom nothing can satisfy, if this
alone is contended for at this moment, that the condemnation
of Sextus Roscius may be added as a sort of crown, as it were,
to this rich and splendid booty, — though many things be in
famous, still is not this the most infamous of all things, that you
should be thought fitting men for these fellows now to expect to
obtain by means of your sentences and your oaths, what they
have hitherto been in the habit of obtaining by wickedness
and by the sword ; that though you have been chosen out of
the state into the senate because of your dignity, and out of
the senate into this body because of your inflexible love of
justice — still assassins and gladiators should ask of you, not
only to allow them to escape the punishment which they
ought to fear and dread at your hands for their crimes, but
40 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
also that they may depart from this court adorned and
enriched with the spoils of Sextus Roscius 1
IV. Of such important and such atrocious actions, I am
aware that I can neither speak with sufficient propriety, nor
complain with sufficient dignity, nor cry out against with
sufficient freedom. For my want of capacity is a hindrance
to my speaking with propriety ; my age, to my speaking with
dignity; the times themselves are an obstacle to my speaking
*dth freedom. To this is added great fear, which both nature
t and my modesty cause me, and your dignity, and the violence
of our adversaries, and the danger of Sextus Roscius. On
which account, I beg and entreat of you, 0 judges, to hear
what -I have to say with attention, and with your favourable
construction. Relying on your integrity and wisdom, I have
undertaken a greater burden than, I am well aware, I am able
to bear. If you, in some degree, lighten this burden, 0 judges,
I will bear it as well as I can with zeal and industry. But if,
as I do not expect, I am abandoned by you, still I will not
fail in courage, and I will bear what I have undertaken as
well as I can. But if I cannot support it, I had rather be
overwhelmed by the weight of my duty, than either through
treachery betray, or through weakness of mind desert, that
which has been once honestly entrusted to me. I also, above
all things, entreat you, 0 Marcus Fannius, to show yourself
at this present time both to us and to the Roman people the
same man that you formerly showed yourself to the Roman
people when you before presided at the trial in this same cause.1
V. You see how great a crowd of men has come to this
trial. You are aware how great is the expectation of men,
and how great their desire that the decisions of the courts of
law should be severe and impartial. After a long interval,
tmVis the first cause about matters of bloodshed which has
been brought into court, though most shameful and import
ant murders have been committed in that interval. All men
hope that while you are prsetor, these trials concerning mani
fest crimes, and the daily murders which take place, will be
conducted with no less severity than this one. We who are
1 Fannius had been praetor, and before a cause came to actual trial, it
came before the praetor, who decided whether there were sufficient
grounds for allowing the trial to proceed ; much as our grand jury does
now.
FOB S. ROSC1CS. 41
pleading this cause adopt the exclamations which in other
trials the accusers are in the habit of using. We entreat of
you, 0 Marcus Fannius, and of you, 0 judges, to punish
crimes with the greatest energy ; to resist audacious men \vith
the greatest boldness ; to consider that unless you show in
this cause what your disposition is, the covetousness and
wickedness, and audacity of men will increase to such a pitch
that murders will take place not only secretly, but even here
in the forum, before your tribunal, 0 Marcus Fannius ; before
your feet, 0 judges, among the very benches of the court.
In truth, what else is aimed at by this trial, except that it may
be lawful to commit such acts ? They are the accusers who
have invaded this man's fortunes. He is pleading his cause
as defendant, to whom these men have left nothing except
misfortune. They are the accusers, to whom it was an ad
vantage that the father of Sextus Roscius should be put to
death. He is the defendant, to whom the death of his father
has brought not only grief, but also poverty. They are the
accusers, who have exceedingly desired to put this man him
self to death. He is the defendant who has come even to
this very trial with a guard, lest he should be slain here in
this very place, before your eyes. Lastly, they are the
accusers whom the people demand punishment on, as the
guilty parties. He is the defendant, who remains as the only
one left after the impious slaughter committed by them.
And that you may be the more easily able to understand,
<) judges, that what has been done is still more infamous than
what we mention, we will explain to you from the beginning
how the matter was managed, so that you may the more
easily be able to perceive both the misery of this most innocent
man, and their audacity, and the calamity of the republic.
VI. Sextus Roscius, the father of this man, was a citizen l
of Ameria, by far the first man not only of his municipality,
but also of his neighbourhood, in birth, and nobility and
wealth, and also of great influence, from the affection and the
ties of hospitality by which he was connected with the most
noble men of Rome. For he had not only connexions of hospi
tality with the Metelli, the Servilii, and the Scipios, but he had
also actual acquaintance and intimacy with them; families
1 A municeps was a citizen of a munidpium. For a full explanation
of these terms see Smith, Diet. Ant, p. 251), v. Colonia.
42 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
which I name, as it is right I should, only to express my sense
of their honour and dignity. And of all his property he has
left this alone to his son, — for domestic robbers have possession
of his patrimony, which they have seized by force — the fame
and life of this innocent man is defended by his paternal
connexions1 and friends. As he had at all times been a
favourer of the side of the nobility, so, too, in this last dis
turbance, when the dignity and safety of all the nobles was
in danger, he, beyond all others in that neighbourhood, de
fended that party and that cause with all his might, and zeal,
and influence. He thought it right, in truth, that he should
fight in defence of their honour, on account of whom he him
self was reckoned most honourable among his fellow-citizens.
After the victory was declared, and we had given up arms,
when men were being proscribed, and when they who were
supposed to be enemies were being taken in every district,
he was constantly at Rome, and in the Forum, and was daily
in the sight of every one ; so that he seemed rather to exult in
the victory of the nobility, than to be afraid lest any disaster
should result to him from it. He had an ancient quarrel with
two Roscii of Ameria, one of whom I see sitting in the seats of
the accusers, the other I hear is in possession of three of this
man's farms ; and if he had been as well able to guard against
their enmity as he was in the habit of fearing it, he would be
alive now. And, 0 judges, he was not afraid without reason.
In these two Roscii, (one of whom is surnamed Capito ; the one
who is present here is called Magnus,) are men of this sort.
One of them is an old and experienced gladiator, who has
gained many victories, but this one here has lately betaken
himself to him as his tutor : and though, before this contest,
he was a mere tyro in knowledge, he easily surpassed his
tutor himself in wickedness and audacity.
VII. For when this Sextus Roscius was at Ameria, but
that Titus Roscius at Rome ; while the former, the son, was
diligently attending to the farm, and in obedience to his
father's desire had given himself up entirely to his domestic
affairs and to a rustic life, but the other man was constantly
at Rome, Sextus Roscius, returning home after supper, is slain
near the Palatine baths. I hope from this very fact, that it
is not obscure on whom the suspicion of the crime falls ; but
1 The Latin word is hospes, answering to the Greek |eVos.
FOR 8. ROSCIUS. 43
if the whole affair does not itself make plain that which as yet
is only to be suspected, I give you leave to say my client is
implicated in the guilt. When Sextus Roscius was slain, the
first person who brings the news to Ameria, is a certain Mal-
lius Glaucia, a man of no consideration, a freedman, the
client and intimate friend of that Titus Roscius ; and he
brings the news to the house, not of the son, but of Titus
Capito, his enemy, and though he had been slain about the
first hour of the night, this messenger arrives at Ameria by
the first dawn of day. In ten hours of the night he travelled
fifty-six miles in a gig, not only to be the first to bring his
enemy the wished-for news, but to show him the blood of his
enemy still quite fresh, and the weapon only lately extracted
from his body. Four days after this happened, news of the
deed is brought to Chrysogonus to the camp of Lucius Sylla
at Volaterra. The greatness of his fortune is pointed out to
him, the excellence of his farms, — for he left behind him thir
teen farms, which nearly all border on the Tiber, — the poverty
and desolate condition of his son is mentioned ; they point
out that, as the father of this man, Sextus Roscius, a man so
magnificent and so popular, was slain without any trouble,
this man, imprudent and unpolished as he was, and unknown
at Rome, might easily be removed. They promise their assis
tance for this business ; not to detain you longer, 0 judges, a
conspiracy is formed.
VIII. As at this time there was no mention of a pro
scription, and as even those who had been afraid of it
before, were returning and thinking themselves now delivered
from their dangers, the name of Sextus Roscius, a man most
zealous for the nobility, is proscribed and his goods sold ;
Chrysogonus is the purchaser ; three of his finest farms are
given to Capito for his own, and he possesses them to this
day ; all the rest of his property that fellow Titus Roscius
seizes in the name of Chrysogonus, as he says himself. This
property, worth six millions of sesterces, is bought for two
thousand. I well know, 0 judges, that all this was done
without the knowledge of Lucius Sylla ; and it is not strange
that while he is surveying at the same time both the things
which are past, and those which seem to be impending ; when
he alone has the authority to establish peace, and the power
of carrying on war ; when all are looking to him alone, and
44: CICERO'S ORATIONS.
he alone is directing all things ; when he is occupied inces
santly by such numerous and such important affairs that he
cannot breathe freely, it is not strange, I say, if he fails to
notice some things ; especially when so many men are watch
ing his busy condition, and catch their opportunity of doing
something of this sort the moment he looks away. To this
is added, that although he is fortunate, as indeed he is, yet no
man can have such good fortune, as in a vast household to
have no one, whether slave or freedman, of worthless character.
In the meantime Titus Roscius, excellent man, the agent of
Chrysogonus, comes to Ameria; he enters on this man's farm;
turns this miserable man, overwhelmed with grief, who had
not yet performed all the ceremonies of his father's funeral,
naked out of his house, and drives him headlong from his
paternal hearth and household gods ; he himself becomes the
owner of abundant wealth. He who had been in great
poverty when he had only his own property, became, as is
usual, insolent when in possession of the property of another ;
he carried many things »penly off to his own house ; he re
moved still more privily ; he gave no little abundantly and
extravagantly to his assistants ; the rest he sold at a regular
auction.
JX. Which appeared to the citizens of Ameria so scanda
lous, that there was weeping and lamentation over the whole
city. In truth, many things calculated to cause grief were
brought at once before their eyes ; the most cruel death of a
most prosperous man, Sextus R»scius, and the most scan
dalous distress of -his son ; to whom that infamous robber had
not left out of so rich a patrimony even enough for a road to
his father's tomb ; the flagitious purchase of his property, the
flagitious possession of it ; thefts, plunders, largesses. There
was no one who would not rather have had it all burnt, than
see Titus Roscius acting as owner of and glorying in the
property of Sextus Roscius, a most virtuous and honourable
man. Therefore a decree of their senate ' is immediately
passed, that the ten chief men should go to Lucius Sylla, and
explain to him what a man Sextus Roscius had been ; should
complain of the wickedness and outrages of those fellows,
i The decuriones were the senators in a colony. Only a decurio
could be a magistrate, and their body possessed -whatever power had
once belonged to the community. Smith, Diet. Ant. v. Colonia.
FOR 8. ROSCIUS. 45
should entreat him to see to the preservation both of the
character of the dead man, and of the fortunes of his innocent
son. And observe, I entreat you, this decree— [Acre the de
cree is read] — The deputies come to the camp. It is now
seen, 0 judges, as I said before, that these crimes and atrocities
were committed without the knowledge of Lucius Sylla. For
immediately Chrysogonus himself comes to them, and sends
some men of noble birth to them too, to beg them not to go
to Sylla, and to promise them that Chrysogonus will do every
thing which they wish. But to such a degree was he alarmed,
that he would rather have died than have let Sylla be in
formed of these things. These old-fashioned men, who judged
of others by their own nature, when he pledged himself to
have the name of Sextus Roscius removed from the lists of
proscription, and to give up the farms unoccupied to his son,
and when Titus Roscius Capito, who was one of the ten depu
ties, added his promise that it should be so, believed him;
they returned to Ameria without presenting their petition.
And at first those fellows began every day to put the matter
off and to procrastinate ; then they began to be more indif
ferent ; to do nothing and to trifle with them ; at last, as was
easily perceived, they began to contrive plots against the life
of this Sextus Roscius, and to think that they could no longer
keep possession of another man's property while the owner
was alive.
X. As soon as he perceived this, by the advice of his friends
and relations he fled to Rome, and betook himself to Csecilia,
the daughter of Nepos, (whom I name to do her honour,)
with whom his father had been exceedingly intimate ; a
woman in whom, 0 judges, even now, as all men are of
opinion, as if it were to serve as a model, traces of the old-
fashioned virtue remain. She received into her house Sextus
Roscius, helpless, turned and driven out of his home and
property, flying from the weapons and threats of robbers,
and she assisted her guest now that he was overwhelmed and
now that his safety was despaired of by every one. By her
virtue and good faith and diligence it has been caused that he
now is rather classed as a living man among the accused, than
as a dead man among the proscribed. For after they per
ceived that the life of Sextus Roscius was protected with the
greatest care, and that there was no possibility of their mur-
46 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
dering him, they adopted a counsel full of wickedness and
audacity, namely, that of accusing him of parricide ; of pro
curing some veteran accuser to support the charge, who could
say something even in a case in which there was no suspicion
whatever; and lastly, as they could not have any chance
against him by the accusation, to prevail against him on
account of the time ; for men began to say, that no trial had
taken place for such a length of time, that the first man
who was brought to trial ought to be condemned ; and they
thought that he would have no advocates because of the in
fluence of Chrysogonus ; that no one would say a word about
the sale of the property and about that conspiracy ; that
because of the mere name of parricide and the atrocity of the
crime he would be put out of the way, without any trouble,
as he was defended by no one. With this plan, and urged on
to such a degree by this madness, they have handed the man
over to you to be put to death, whom they themselves, when
they wished, were unable to murder.
XL What shall I complain of first? or from what point
had I best begin, 0 judges'? or what assistance shall I seek,
or from whom? Shall I implore at this time the aid of the
immortal gods, or that of the Roman people, or of your in
tegrity, — you who have the supreme power? The father in
famously murdered; the house besieged; the property taken
away, seized and plundered by enemies ; the life of the son,
hostile to their purposes, attacked over and over again by
sword and treachery. What wickedness does there seem to
be wanting in these numberless atrocities ? And yet they
crown and add to them by other nefarious deeds, — they in
vent an incredible accusation ; they procure witnesses against
him and accusers of him by bribery; they offer the wretched
man this alternative, — whether he would prefer to expose his
neck to Roscius to be assassinated by him, or, being sewn in a
sack, to lose his life with the greatest infamy. They thought
advocates would be wanting to him ; they are wanting. There
is not wanting in truth, 0 judges, one who will speak with
freedom, and who will defend him with integrity, which is
quite sufficient in this cause, (since I have undertaken it.)
And perhaps in undertaking this cause I may have acted
rashly, in obedience to the impulses of youth; but since I
have once undertaken it, although forsooth every sort of terror
FOR s. ROSCIUS. 47
and every possible danger were to threaten me on all sides,
yet I will support and encounter them. I have deliberately
resolved not only to say everything which I think is material
to the cause, but to say it also willingly, boldly, and freely.
Nothing can ever be of such importance in my mind that
fear should be able to put a greater constraint on me than a
regard to good faith. Who, indeed, is of so profligate a dis
position, as, when he sees these things, to be able to be silent
and to disregard them 1 You have murdered my father when
he had not been proscribed; you have classed him when mur
dered in the number of proscribed persons; you have driven
me by force from my house; you are in possession of my
patrimony. What would you more? have you not come even
before the bench with sword and arms, that you may either
convict Sextus Roscius or murder him in this presence?
XII. We lately had a most audacious man in this city,
Caius Fimbria, a man, as is well known among all except
among those who are mad themselves, utterly insane. He,
when at the funeral of Caius Marius, had contrived that
Quintus Screvola, the most venerable and accomplished man
in our city, should be wounded ; — (a man in whose praise
there is neither room to say much here, nor indeed is it pos
sible to say more than the Roman people preserves in its re
collection) — he, I say, brought an accusation against Scsevola,
when he found that he might possibly live. When the ques
tion was asked him, what he was going to accuse that man of,
whom no one could praise in a manner sufficiently suitable to
his worth, they say that the man, like a madman as he was,
answered, — for not having received the whole weapon in his
body. A more lamentable thing was never seen by the Roman
people, unless it were the death of that same man, which was
so important that it crushed and broke the hearts of all his
fellow-citizens ; for endeavouring to save whom by an arrange
ment, he was destroyed by them.1 Is not this case very like
that speech and action of Fimbria? You are accusing Sextus
Roscius: Why so? Because he escaped out of your hands;
because he did not allow himself to be murdered. The one
action, because it was done against Scsevola, appears scanda
lous; this one, because it is done by Chrysogonus, is intoler-
1 Scasvola was trying to effect an accommodation between the parties
of Sylla and Marius when he was murdered by them.
48 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
able. For, in the name of the immortal gods, what is there in
this cause that requires a defence? What topic is there re
quiring the ability of an advocate, or even veiy much needing
eloquence of speech? Let us, 0 judges, unfold the whole
case, and when it is set before our eyes, let us consider it ; by
this means you will easily understand on what the whole case
turns, and on what matters I ought to dwell, and what deci
sion you ought to come to.
XIII. There are three things, as I think, which are at
the present time hindrances to Sextus Roscius : — the charge
brought by his adversaries, their audacity, and their power.
Erucius has taken on himself the pressing of this false
charge as accuser; the Roscii have claimed for themselves
that part which is to be executed by audacity ; but Chryso-
gonus, as being the person of the greatest influence, employs
his influence in the contest. On all these points I am aware
that I must speak. What then am I to say? I must not
speak in the same manner on them all ; because the first topic
indeed belongs to my duty, but the two others the Roman
people have imposed on you. I must efface the accusations;
you ought both to resist the audacity, and at the earliest
possible opportunity to extinguish and put down the perni
cious and intolerable influence of men of that sort. Sextus
Roscius is accused of having murdered his father. 0 ye im
mortal gods! a wicked and nefarious action, in which one
crime every sort of wickedness appears to be contained. In
truth, if, as is well said by wise men, affection is often injured
by a look, what sufficiently severe punishment can be devised
against him who has inflicted death on his parent, for whom
all divine and human laws bound him to be willing to die
himself, if occasion required 1 In the case of so enormous, so
atrocious, so singular a crime, as this one which has been
committed so rarely, that, if it is ever heard of, it is accounted
like a portent and prodigy — what arguments do you think,
O Cams Ei'ucius, you as the accuser ought to use? Ought
you not to prove the singular audacity of. him who is accused
of it? and his savage manners, and brutal nature, and his
life devoted to every sort of vice and crime, his whole cha-
racter, in short, given up to profligacy and abandoned ? None
of which things have you alleged against Sextus Roscius, not
even for the sake of making the imputation. , ^-
FOB S. KOSC1UB. 49
XIV. Sextus Roscius has murdered his father. What sort
of man is he ? is he a young man, corrupted, and led on by
worthless men? He is more than forty years old. Is he for
sooth an old assassin, a bold man, and one well practised in
murder? You have not this so much as mentioned by the
accuser. To be sure, then, luxury, and the magnitude of his
debts, and the ungovernable desires of his disposition, have
urged the man to this wickedness1? Erucius acquitted him
of luxury, when he said that he was scarcely ever present at
any banquet. But he never owed anything. Further, what
evil desires could exist in that man who, as his accuser himself
objected to him, has always lived in the country, and spent
his time in cultivating his land; a mode of life which is
utterly removed from covetousness, and inseparably allied to
virtue? What was it then which inspired Sextus Roscius with
such madness as that ? Oh, says he, he did not please his
father. He did not please his father? For what reason? for
it must have been both a just and an important and a noto
rious reason. For as this is incredible, that death should be
inflicted on a father by a son, without many and most weighty
reasons ; so this, too, is not probable, that a son should be
hated by his father, without many and important and neces
sary causes. Let us return again to the same point, and ask
what vices existed in this his only son of such importance as
to make him incur the displeasure of his father. But it
is notorious he had no vices. His father then was mad to
hate him whom he had begotten, without any cause. But
he was the most reasonable and sensible of men. This, then,
is evident, that, if the father was not crazy, nor his son
profligate, the father had no cause for displeasure, nor the^sen
for crime.
XV. I know not, says he, what cause for displeasure there
was ; but I know that displeasure existed ; because formerly,
when he had two sons, he chose that other one, who is dead,
to be at all times with himself, but sent this other one to his
farms in the country. The same thing which happened to
Erucius in supporting this wicked and trifling charge, has
happened to me in advocating a most righteous cause. He
could find no means of supporting this trumped-up charge ; I
can hardly find out by what arguments I am to invalidate
and get rid of such trifling circumstances. What do you say,
/>0 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
Erucius ? Did Sextus Roscius entrust so many farms, and
such fine and productive ones to his son to cultivate and
manage, for the sake of getting rid of and punishing him ?
What can this mean? Do not fathers of families who have
children, particularly men of that class of municipalities in
the country, do they not think it a most desirable thing for
them that their sons should attend in a great degree to their
domestic affairs, and should devote much of their labour and
attention to cultivating their farms ? Did he send him off to
those farms that he might remain on the land and merely
have life kept in him at this country seat 1 that he might be
deprived of all conveniences 1 What 1 if it is proved that he
not only managed the cultivation of the farms, but "was accus
tomed himself to have certain of the farms for his own, even
during the lifetime of his father 1 Will his industrious and
rural life still be called removal and banishment 1 You see,
0 Erucius, how far removed your line of argument is from
the fact itself, and from truth. That which fathers usually
do, you find fault with as an unprecedented thing ; that
which is done out of kindness, that you accuse as having been
done from dislike ; that which a father granted his son as an
honour, that you say he did with the object of punishing
him. Not that you are not aware of all this, but you are so
wholly without any arguments to bring forward, that you
think it necessai'y to plead not only against us, but even
against the very nature of things, and against the customs 01
men, and the opinion of every one.
XVI. Oh but, when he had two sons, he never let one be
away from him, and he allowed the other to remain in the
country. I beg you, 0 Erucius, to take what I am going to
say in good part ; for I am going to say it, not for the sake
of finding fault, but to warn you. If fortune did not give to
you to know the father whose son you are, so that you could
understand what was the affection of fathers towards their
children ; still, at all events, nature has given you no small
share of human feeling. To this is added a zeal for learning,
so that you are not unversed in literature, Does that old
man in Csecilius, (to quote a play,) appear to have less
affection for Eutychus, his son, who lives in the country,
than for his other one Chserestratus 1 for that, I think, is his
name ; do you think that he keeps one with him in the city
FOR S. ROSCIUS. 51
to do him honour, and sends the other into the country in
order to punish him ? Why do you have recourse to such
trifling 1 you will say. As if it were a hard matter for me to
bring forward ever so many by name, of my own tribe, or
my own neighbours, (not to wander too far off,) who wish
those sons for whom they have the greatest regard, to be dili
gent farmers. But it is an odious step to quote known men,
when it is uncertain whether they would like their names to
be used ; and no one is likely to be better known to you
than this same Eutychus ; and certainly it has nothing to do
with the argument, whether I name this youth in a play, or
some one of the country about Veii. In truth, I think that
these things are invented by poets in order that we may see
our manners sketched under the character of strangers, and
the image of our daily life represented under the guise of
fiction. Come now; turn your thoughts, if you please, to
reality, and consider not only in Umbria and that neighbour
hood, but in these old municipal towns, what pursuits are
most praised by fathers of families. You will at once see
that, from want of real grounds of accusation, you have im
puted that which is his greatest praise to Sextus Eoscius as a
fault and a crime.
XVII. But not only do children do this by the wish of
their fathers, but I have myself known many men (and so,
unless I am deceived, has every one of you) who are inflamed
of their own accord with a fondness for what relates to the
cultivation of land, and who think this rural life, which you
think ought to be a disgrace to and a charge against a man,
the most honourable and the most delightful. What do you
think of this very Sextus Roscius ? How great is his fondness
for, and shrewdness in rural affairs ! As I hear from his rela
tions, most honourable men, you are not more skilful in this
your business of an accuser, than he is in his. But, as I
think, since it seems good to Chrysogonus, who has left him
no farm, he will be able now to forget this skill of his, and to
give up this taste. And although that is a sad and a scan
dalous thing, yet he will bear it, 0 judges, with equanimity,
if, by your verdict, he can preserve his life and his character;
but this is intolerable, if he is both to have this calamity
brought upon him on account of the goodness and number of
his farms, and if that is especially to be imputed to him as a
52 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
crime that he cultivated them with great care ; so that it is
not to be misery enough to have cultivated them for others,
not for himself, unless it is also to be accounted a crime that
he cultivated them at all.
XVIII. In truth, 0 Erucius, you would have been a ridi
culous accuser, if you had been born in those times when men
were sent for from the plough to be made consuls. Cer
tainly you, who think it a crime to have superintended the
cultivation of a farm, would consider that Atilius, whom
those who were sent to him found sowing seed with his own
hand, a most base and dishonourable man. But, forsooth,
our ancestors judged very differently both of him and of all
other such men. And therefore from a very small and power
less state they left us one very great and very prosperous.
For they diligently cultivated their own lands, they did not
graspingly desire those of others ; by which conduct they
enlarged the republic, and this dominion, and the name of
the Roman people, with lands, and conquered cities, and sub
jected nations. Nor do I bring forward these instances in
order to compare them with these matters which we are now
investigating ; but in order that that may be understood ;
that, as in the times of our ancestors, the highest and most
illustrious men, who ought at all times to have been sitting
at the helm of the republic, yet devoted much of their atten
tion and time to the cultivation of their lands ; that man
ought to be pardoned, who avows himself a rustic, for having
lived constantly in the country, especially when he could do
nothing which was either more pleasing to his father, or more
delightful to himself, or in reality more honourable. The
bitter dislike of the father to the son, then, is proved by this,
0 Erucius, that he allowed him to remain in the country. Is
there anything else ? Certainly, says he, there is. For
he was thinking of disinheriting him. I hear you. Now you
are saying something which may have a bearing on the busi
ness, for you will grant, I think, that those other arguments
are trifling and childish. He never went to any feasts with
his father. Of course not, as he very seldom came to town
at all. People very seldom asked him to their houses. No
wonder, for a man who did not live in the city, and was not
likely to ask them in return.
XIX. But you are aware that these things too are trifling.
FOR 8. ROSCIU8. 53
Let us consider that which we began with, than which no
more certain argument of dislike can possibly be found. The
father was thinking of disinheriting his son. I do not ask on
what account. I ask how you know it? Although you
ought to mention and enumerate all the reasons. And it
was the duty of a regular accuser, who was accusing a man of
such wickedness, to unfold all the vice and sins of a son which
had exasperated the father so as to enable him to bring his
mind to subdue nature herself — to banish from his mind that
affection so deeply implanted in it — to forget in short that he
was a father; and all this I do not think could have hap
pened without great errors on the part of the son. But I
give you leave to pass over those things, which, as you are
silent, you admit have no existence. At all events you ought
to make it evident that he did intend to disinherit him.
What then do you allege to make us think that that was the
case 1 You can say nothing with truth. Invent something
at least with probability in it ; that you may not manifestly
be convicted of doing what you are openly doing — insulting
the fortunes of this unhappy man, and the dignity of these
noble judges. He meant to disinherit his son. On what
account? I don't know. Did he disinherit him? No.
Who hindered him1? He was thinking of it. He was
thinking of it? Who did he tell? No one. What is
abusing the court of justice, and the laws, and your majesty,
0 judges, for the purposes of gain and lust, but accusing men
in this manner, and bringing imputations against them which
you not only are not able to prove, but which you do not
even attempt to ? There is not one of us, 0 Erucius, who
does not know that you have no enmity against Sextus
Roscius. All men see on what account you come here as his
adversary. They know that you are induced to do so by this
man's money. What then 1 Still you ought to have been
desirous of gain with such limitations as to think that the
opinion of all these men, and the Remmian1 law ought to
nave some weight.
XX. It is a useful thing for there to be many accusers in
a city, in order that audacity may be kept in check by fear ;
1 The Remmia Lex fixed the punishment for calumnia; but it is
not known when this law was passed, nor what were its penalties. —
Smith, Diet. Ant. v. Calumnia.
54 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
but it is only useful with this limitation, that we are not to
be manifestly mocked by accusers. A man is innocent. But
although he is free from guilt he is not free from suspicion.
Although it is a lamentable thing, still I can, to some extent,
pardon a man who accuses him. For when he has anything
which he can say. imputing a crime, or fixing a suspicion, he
does not appear knowingly to be openly mocking and calum
niating. On which account we all easily allow that there
should be as many accusers as possible ; because an innocent
man, if he be accused, can be acquitted ; a guilty man, unless
he be accused cannot be convicted. But it is more desirable
that an innocent man should be acquitted, than that a guilty
man should not be brought to trial Food for the geese is con
tracted for at the public expense, and dogs are maintained in
the Capitol, to give notice if thieves come. But they cannot
distinguish thieves. Accordingly they give notice if any one
comes by night to the Capitol : and because that is a suspi
cious thing, although they are but beasts, yet they oftenest
err on that side which is the more prudent one. But if the
dogs barked by day also, when any one came to pay honour
to the gods. I imagine their legs would be broken for being
active then also, when there was no suspicion. The notion of
accusers is very much the same. Some of you are geese, who
only cry out, and have no power to hurt, some are dogs who
can both bark and bite. We see that food is provided for
you ; but you ought chiefly to attack those who deserve it.
This is most pleasing to the people ; then if you will, then
you may bark on suspicion when it seems probable that some
one has committed a crime. That may be allowed. But if
you act in such a way as to accuse a man of having murdered
his father, without being able to say why or how ; and if you
are only barking without any ground for suspicion, no one, in
deed, will break your legs : but if I know these judges well, they
will so firmly nffi* to your heads that letter1 to which you are
BO hostile that you hate all the Calends too, that you shall
hereafter be able to accuse no one but your own fortunes.
1 The letter was K, which was branded on the forehead of those who
were convicted of bringing false accusations, being the first letter of the
word ialumnia as it was originally spelt It was also the first letter of
the word kalendce, and on the calends of each month debts were accus
tomed to be got in, and bonds were liable to be paid.
FOB S. KOSCICS. 55
XXI. What have you given me to defend my client against,
iny good accuser ? And what ground have you given these
iudges for any suspicion ? He was afraid of being disin
herited. I hear you. But no one says what ground he had
for fear. His father had it in contemplation. Prove it.
There is no proof; there is no mention of any one with whom
he deliberated about it — whom he told of it : there is no cir
cumstance from which it could occur to your minds to suspect
it. When you bring accusations in this manner. 0 Erucius,
do you not plainly say this ? "I know what I have received,
but I do not know what to say. I have had regard to that
alone which Chrysogonus said, that no one would be his
advocate ; that there was no one who would dare at this time
to say a word about the purchase of the property, and about
that conspiracy." This false opinion prompted you to this
• lishonesty. You would not in truth have said a word if you
had thought that any one would answer you. It were worth
\vhile, if you have noticed it, 0 judges, to consider this man's
carelessness in bringing forward his accusations. I imagine,
when he saw what men were sitting on those benches, that he
inquired whether this man or that man was going to defend
him ; that he never even dreamt of me, because I have never
pleaded any public cause before. After he found that no one
was going to defend him of those men who have the ability
and are in the habit of so doing, he began to be so careless
that, when it suited his fancy he sat down, then he walked
about, sometimes he even called his boy, I suppose to give
him orders for supper, and utterly overlooked your assembly
and all this court as if it had been a complete d'esert
XXII. At length he summed up. He sat down. I got
up. He seemed to breathe again because no one else rose to
speak other than I. I began to speak. I noticed, 0 judges,
that he was joking and doing other things, up to the time
when I named Chrysogonus ; but as soon as I touched him,
my man at once raised himself up. He seemed to be asto
nished. I knew what had pinched him. I named him a
second time, and a third. After, men began to run hither
and thither, I suppose to tell Chrysogonus that there was
some one who dared to speak contrary to his will, that the
cause was going on differently from what he expected, that
the purchase of the goods was being ripped up : that the
56 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
conspiracy was being severely handled ; that his influence and
power was being disregarded ; that the judges were attending
diligently ; that the matter appeared scandalous to the people.
And since you were deceived in all this, 0 Erucius, and since
you see that everything is altered ; that the cause on behalf
of Sextus Roscius is argued, if not as it should be, at all
events with freedom, since you see that he is defended whom
you thought was abandoned, that those who you expected
would deliver him up to you are judging impartially, give us
again, at last, some of your old skill and prudence ; confess that
you came hither with the hope that there would be a robbery
here, not a trial. A trial is held on a charge of parricide,
and no reason is alleged by the accuser why the son has slain
his father. That which, in even the least offences and in the
more trifling crimes, which are more frequent and of almost
daily occurrence, is asked most earnestly and as the very first
question, namely what motive there was for the offence ; that
Erucius does not think necessary to be asked in a case of
parricide. A charge which, O judges, even when many
motives appear to concur, and to be connected with one
another, is still not rashly believed, nor is such a case allowed
to depend on slight conjecture, nor is any uncertain witness
listened to, nor is the matter decided by the ability of the
accuser. Many crimes previously committed must be proved,
and a most profligate life on the part of the prisoner, and
singular audacity, and not only audacity, but the most
extreme frenzy and madness. When all these things are
proved, still there must exist express traces of the crime ;
where, in what manner, by whose means, and at what time
the crime was committed. And unless these proofs are
numerous and evident — so wicked, so atrocious, so nefarious a
deed cannot be believed. For the power of human feeling is
great ; the connexion of blood is of mighty power ; nature
herself cries out against suspicions of this sort ; it is a most
xmdeniable portent and prodigy, for any one to exist in human
shape, who so far outruns the beasts in savageness, as in a
most scandalous manner to deprive those of life by whose
means he has himself beheld this most delicious light of
life ; when birth, and bringing up, and nature herself make
even beasts friendly to each other.
XXIII. Not many years ago they say that Titus Cloelius, a
FOR S. ROSOIUS. 57
citizen of Terracina, a well-known man, when, having supped,
he had retired to rest in the same room with his two youthful
sons, was found in the morning with his throat cut : when
no servant could be found nor any free man, on whom suspi
cion of the deed could be fixed, and his two sons of that age
lying near him said that they did not even know what had
been done ; the sons were accused of the parricide. What
followed ? it was, indeed, a suspicious business ; that neither
of them were aware of it, and that some one had ventured to
introduce himself into that chamber, especially at that time
when two young men were in the same place, who might
easily have heard the noise and defended him. Moreover,
there was no one on whom suspicion of the deed could fall.
Still as it was plain to the judges that they were found
sleeping with the door open, the young men were acquitted
and released from all suspicion. For no one thought that
there was any one who, when he had violated all divine and
human laws by a nefarious crime, could immediately go to
sleep ; because they who have committed such a crime not
only cannot rest free from care, but cannot even breathe
without fear.
XXIV. Do you not see in the case of those whom the
poets have handed down to tis, as having, for the sake of
avenging their father, inflicted punishment on their mother,
especially when they were said to have done so at the com
mand and in obedience to the oracles of the immortal gods,
how the furies nevertheless haunt them, and never suffer
them to rest, because they could not be pious without wicked
ness. And this is the truth, 0 judges. The blood of one's
father and mother has great power, great obligation, is a most
holy thing, and if any stain of that falls on one, it not only
cannot be washed out, but it drips down into the very soul,
so that extreme frenzy and madness follow it. For do not
believe, as you often see it written in fables, that they who
have done anything impiously and wickedly are really driven
about and frightened by the furies with burning torches. It
is his own dishonesty and the terrors of his own conscience
that especially harass each individual ; his own wickedness
drives each criminal about and affects him with madness;
bis own evil thoughts, his own evil conscience terriiies him.
These are to the wicked their incessant and domestic furies,
58 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
which night and day exact from wicked sons punishment for
the crimes committed against their parents. This enormity
of the crime is the cause why, unless a parricide is proved in
a manner almost visible, it is not credible ; unless a man's
youth has been base, unless his life has been stained with
every sort of wickedness, unless his extravagance has been
prodigal and accompanied with shame and disgrace, unless his
audacity has been violent, unless his rashness has been such
as to be not far removed from insanity. There must be,
besides a hatred of his father, a fear of his father's reproof —
worthless friends, slaves privy to the deed, a convenient oppor
tunity, a place fitly selected for the business. I had almost
said the judges must see his hands stained with his father's
blood, if they are to believe so monstrous, so barbarous, so
terrible a crime. On which account, the less credible it is
unless it be proved, the more terribly is it to be punished if
it be proved.
XXV. Therefore, it may be understood by many circum
stances that our ancestors surpassed other nations not only in
arms, but also in wisdom and prudence ; and also most espe
cially by this, that they devise a singular punishment for the
impious. And in this matter consider how far they surpassed
in prudence those who are said to have been the wisest of all
nations. The state of the Athenians is said to have been the
wisest while it enjoyed the supremacy. Moreover of that
state they say that Solon was the wisest man. he who made
the laws which they use even to this day. When he was
asked why he had appointed no punishment for him who
killed his father, he answered that he had not supposed that
any one would do so. He is said to have done wisely in esta
blishing nothing about a crime which had up to that time
never been committed, lest he should seem not so much to
forbid it as to put people in mind of it. How much more
wisely did our ancestors act ! for as they understood that
there was nothing so holy that audacity did not sometimes
violate it, they devised a singular punishment for parricides
in order that they whom nature herself had not been able to
retain in their duty, might be kept from crime by the en
ormity of the punishment. They, ordered them to be sown
alive in a sack, and in that condition to be thrown into the
river.
FOR S. BOSCIUS. 59
XXVI. 0 singular wisdom, 0 judges ! Do they not seem
to have cut this man oft' and separated him from nature ; from
whom they took away at once the heaven, the sun, water and
earth, so that he who had slain him, from whom he himself
was born, might be deprived of all those things from which
everything is said to derive its birth. They would not throw
his body to wild beasts, lest we should find the very beasts
who had touched such wickedness, more savage ; they would
not throw them naked into the river, lest when they were
carried down into the sea, they should pollute that also, by
which all other things which have been polluted are believed
to be purified. There is nothing in short so vile or so common
that they left them any share in it. Indeed what is so
common as breath to the living, earth to the dead, the sea to
those who float, the shore to those who are cast up by the
sea ? These men so live, while they are able to live at all,
that they are unable to draw breath from heaven ; they so die
that earth does not touch their bones; they are tossed about
by the waves so that they are never washed; lastly, they are
cast up by the sea so, that when dead they do not even rest
on the rocks. Do you think, 0 Erucius, that you can prove
to such men as these your charge of so enormous a crime, a
crime to which so remarkable a punishment is affixed, if you
do not allege any motive for the crime 1 If you were accusing
him before the very purchasers of his property, and if Chry-
sogonus were presiding at that trial, still you would have
come more carefully and with more preparation. Is it that
you do not see what the cause really is, or before whom it is
being pleaded ? The cause in question is parricide ; which
cannot be undertaken without many motives ; and it is being
tried before very wise men, who are aware that no one com
mits the very slightest crime without any motive whatever.
XXVII. Be it so ; you are unable to allege any motive.
Although I ought at once to gain my cause, yet I will not
insist on this, and I will concede to you in this cause what I
would not concede in another, relying on this man's innocence.
I do not ask you why Sextus Roscius killed his father ; I ask
you how he killed him 1 So I ask of you, 0 Caius Erucius,
how, and I will so deal with you, that I will on this topic
give you leave to answer me or to interrupt me, or even, if
you wish to at all, to ask me questions. How did he kill
GO CICERO'S ORATIONS.
him ? Did he strike him himself, or did he commit him to
others to be murdered ? If you say he did it himself, he was
not at Rome ; if you say he did it by the instrumentality of
others, I ask you were they slaves or free men 1 who were
they ? Did they come from the same place, from Ameria, or
were they assassins of this city ? If they came from Ameria,
who are they, why are they not named 1 If they are of Rome,
how did Roscius make acquaintance with them ] who for
many years had not come to Rome, and who never was there
more than three days. Where did he meet them 1 with whom
did he speak 1 how did he persuade them 1 Did he give
them a bribe ? to whom did he give it 1 by whose agency did
he give it ? whence did he get it, and how much did he give 1
Are not these the steps by which one generally arrives at the
main fact of guilt 1 And let it occur to you at the same time
how you have painted this man's life ; that you have de
scribed him as an unpolished and country-mannered man ;
that he never held conversation with any one, that he had never
dwelt in the city. And in this I pass over that thing which
might be a strong argument for me to prove his innocence,
that atrocities of this sort are not usually produced among
country manners, in a sober coiirse of life, in an unpolished
and rough sort of existence. As you cannot find every sort
of crop, nor every tree, in every field, so every sort of crime is
not engendered in every sort of life. In a city, luxury is en
gendered; avarice is inevitably produced by luxury; audacity
must spring from avarice, and out of audacity arises every
wickedness and every crime. But a country life, which you
call a clownish one, is the teacher of economy, of industry,
and of justice.
XXVIII. But I will say no more of this. I ask then by
whose instrumentality did this man, who, as you yourself say,
never mixed with men, contrive to accomplish this terrible
crime with such secrecy, especially while absent ? There are
many things, 0 judges, which are false, and which can still be
argued so as to cause suspicion. But in this matter, if any
grounds for suspicion can be discovered, I will admit that
there is guilt. Sextus Roscius is murdered at Rome, while
his son is at his farm at Ameria. He sent letters. I suppose,
to some assassin, he who knew no one at Rome. He sent for
someone — but when? He sent a messenger— whom ? or to
FOB S. ROSCIUS. 61
whom? Did he persuade any one by bribes, by influence, by
hope, by promises 1 None of these things can even be invented
against him, and yet a trial for parricide is going on. The only
remaining alternative is that he managed it by means of slaves.
Oh ye immortal gods, how miserable and disastrous is our lot.
That which under such an accusation is usually a protection
to the innocent, to offer his slaves to the question, that it is
not allowed to Sextus Roscius to do. You, who accuse him,
have all his slaves. There is not one boy to bring him his
daily food left to Sextus Roscius out of so large a household.
I appeal to you now, Publius Scipio, to you Metellus, while
you were acting as his advocates, while you were pleading his
cause, did not Sextus Roscius often demand of his adversaries
that two of his father's slaves should be put to the question ?
Do you remember that you, 0 Titus Roscius, refused it ?
What? Where are those slaves? They are waiting on
Chrysogonus, 0 judges ; they are honoured and valued by
him. Even now I demand that they be put to the question ;
he begs and entreats it. What are you doing ? Why do you
refuse ? Doubt now, O judges, if you can, by whom Sextus
Roscius was murdered j whether by him, who, on account
of his death, is exposed to poverty and treachery, who
has not even opportunity allowed him of making inquiry
into his father's death ; or by those who shun investigation,
who are in possession of his property, who live amid murder,
and by murder. Everything in this cause, 0 judges, is
lamentable and scandalous ; but there is nothing which can
be mentioned more bitter or more iniquitous than this. The
son is not allowed to put his father's slaves to the question
concerning his father's death. He is not to be master of his
own slaves so long as to put them to the question concerning
his father's death. I will come again, and that speedily, to
this topic. For all this relates to the Roscii ; and I have
promised that I will speak of their audacity when I have
effaced the accusations of Erucius.
XXIX. Now, Erucius, I come to you. You must inevit
ably agree with me, if he is really implicated in this crime,
that he either committed it with his own hand, which you
deny, or by means of some other men, either freemen or
slaves. Were they freemen ? You can neither show that he
had any opportunity of meeting them, nor by what means he
62 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
could persuade them, nor where he saw them, nor by whose
agency he trafficked with them, nor by what hope, or what
bribe he persuaded them. I show, on the other hand, not only
that Sextus Roscius did nothing of all this, but that he was
not even able to do anything, because he had neither been at
Rome for many years, nor did he ever leave his farm without
some object. The name of slaves appeared to remain to you,
to which, when driven from your other suspicions, you might
fly as to a harbour, when you strike upon such a rock that
you not only see the accusation rebound back from it, but
perceive that every suspicion falls upon you yourselves. What
is it, then 1 Whither has the accuser betaken himself in his
dearth of arguments 1 The time, says he, was such that men
were constantly being killed with impunity ; so that you, from
the great number of assassins, could effect this without any
trouble. Meantime you seem to me, 0 Erucius, to be wish
ing to obtain two articles for one payment ; to blacken our
characters in this trial, and to accuse those very men from
whom you have received payment. What do you say ? Men
were constantly being killed ] By whose agency? and by
whom ? Do you not perceive that you have been brought
here by brokers 1 What next ? Are we ignorant that in
these times the same men were brokers of men's lives as well
as of their possessions ] Shall those men then, who at that
time used to run about armed night and day, who spent all
their time in rapine and murder, object to Sextus Roscius the
bitterness and iniquity of that time 1 and will they think that
troops of assassins, among whom they themselves were leaders
and chiefs, can be made a ground of accusation against him ?
who not only was not at Rome, but who was utterly ignorant
of everything that was being done at Rome, because he was
continually in the country, as you yourself admit. I fear that
I may be wearisome to you, 0 judges, or that I may seem to
distrust your capacity, if I dwell longer on matters which are
so evident. The whole accusation of Erucius, as I think, is
at an end ; unless perhaps you expect me to refute the charges
which he has brought against us of peculation and of other
imaginary crimes of that sort ; charges unheard of by us be
fore this time, and quite novel ; which he appeared to me to
be spouting out of some other speech which he was composing
against some other criminal ; so wholly were they unconnected
FOR S. EOSCIUS. 63
with either the crime of parricide, or with him who is now on
his trial. But as he accuses us of these things with his bare
word, it is sufficient to deny them with our bare word. If
there is any point which he is keeping back to prove by wit
nesses, there also, as in this cause, he shall find us more ready
than he expected.
XXX. I come now to that point to which my desire does
not lead me, but good faith towards my client. For if
I wished to accuse men, I should accuse those men rather by
accusing whom I might become moreimportant, which I have
determined not to do, as long as the alternatives of accusing
and defending are both open to me. For that man appears
to me the most honourable who arrives at a higher rank by
his own virtue, not he who rises by the distress and mis
fortunes of another. Let us cease for awhile to examine into
these matters which are unimportant ; let us inquire where
the guilt is, and where it can be detected. By this time you
will understand, 0 Eracius, by how many suspicious circum
stances a real crime must be proved, although I shall not
mention every thing, and shall touch on every thing slightly.
And I would not do even that if it were not necessary, and it
shall be a sign that I am doing it against my will, that I will
not pursue the point further than the safety of Roscius and
my own good faith requires. You found no motive in Sextus
Roscius ; but I do find one in Titus Roscius. For I have to
do with you now, 0 Titus Roscius, since you are sitting there
and openly professing yourself an enemy. We shall see about
Capito afterwards, if he comes forward as a witness, as I hear
he is ready to do ; then he shall hear of other victories of his,
which he does not suspect that I ever even heard. That Lucius
Cassius, whom the Roman people used to consider a most im
partial and able judge, used constantly to ask at trials, "to whom
it had been any advantage?" The life of men is so directed
that no one attempts to proceed to crime without some hope
of advantage. Those who were about to be tried avoided and
dreaded him as an investigator and a judge ; because, although
he was a friend of truth, he yet seemed not so much inclined
by nature to mercy, as drawn by circumstances to severity.
I, although a man is presiding at this trial who is both brave
against audacity, and very merciful to innocence, would yet
willingly suffer mvself to speak in behalf of Sextus Roscius,
64 CICERO'S. ORATIONS.
either before that very acute judge himself, or before other
judges like him, whose very name those who have to stand a
trial shudder at even now.
XXXI. For when those judges saw in this cause that those
men are in possesion of abundant wealth, and that he is in
the greatest beggary, they would not ask who had got ad
vantage from the deed, but they would connect the manifest
crime and suspicion of guilt rather with the plunder than with
the poverty. What if this be added to that consideration that
you were previously poor 1 what if it be added that you are
avaricious 1 what if it be added that you are audacious ? what
if it be added that you were the greatest enemy of the man
who has been murdered ? need any further motive be sought
for, which may have impelled you to such a crime? But
which of all these particulars can be denied ? The poverty
of the man is such that it cannot be concealed, and it is only
the more conspicuous the more it is kept out of sight. Your
avarice you make a parade of when you form an alliance with
an utter stranger against the fortunes of a fellow-citizen and
a relation. How audacious you are (to pass over other points),
all men may understand from this, that out of the whole
troop, that is to say, out of so many assassins, you alone were
found to sit with the accusers, and not only to show them
your countenance, but even to volunteer it. You must
admit that you had enmity against Sextus Roscius, and great
disputes about family affairs. It remains, 0 judges, that we
must now consider which of the two rather killed Sextus
Roscius ; did he to whom riches accrued by his death, or did
he to whom beggary was the result ? Did he who, before that,
was poor, or he, Avho after that became most indigent 1 Did
he, who burning with avarice rushes in like an enemy against
his own relations, or he who has always lived in such a manner
as to have no acquaintance with exorbitant gains, or with any
profit beyond that which he procured with toil ? Did he
who, of all the brokers1 is the most audacious, or he who,
because of the insolence of the forum and of the public courts,
dreads not only the bench, but even the city itself 1 Lastly,
0 judges, what is most material of all to the argument in my
opinion — did his enemy do it or his son ?
1 There is a pun here on the word sector, which means not only a
broker, but also a cut-throat, a murderer.
FOR S. ROSCIUS. 65
XXXII. If you, 0 Eracius, had so many and such strong
arguments against a criminal, how long you would speak;
how you would plume yourself, — time indeed would fail you
before words did. In truth, on each of these topics the ma
terials are such that you might spend a whole day on each.
And I could do the same; for I will not derogate so much
from my own claims, though I arrogate nothing, as to believe
that you can speak with more fluency than I can. But I,
perhaps, owing to the number of advocates, may be classed in
the common body; the battle of Cannae1 has made you a
sufficiently respectable accuser. We have seen many men
slain, not at Thrasymenus, but at Servilius.2 " Who was not
wounded there with Phrygian3 steel 1 " I need not enumerate
all, — the Curtii, the Marii, the Mamerci, whom age now ex
empted from battles; and, lastly, the aged Priam himself,
Antistius,4 whom not only his age, but even the laws excused
from going to battle. There are now six hundred men, whom,,
nobody even mentions by name because of their meanness,,
who are accusers of men on charges of murdering and poison
ing; all of whom, as far as I am concerned, I hope may find
a livelihood. For there is no harm in there being as many
dogs as possible, where there are many men to be watched,
and many things to be guarded. But, as is often the case, the
1 There is a little dispute as to Cicero's exact meaning here. Some
think there is a sort of pun on the similarity of sound between
Cannensis and Cinnanensis, and that allusion is intended to the
destruction of Cinna's army, in which a great number of Roman knights
were slain. Facciolati thinks that the battle of Cannae is mentioned,
not on account of the battle itself but of what followed it ; so that as,
after the battle of Cannae, the dictator was forced to intrust arms even
to slaves, now, after the proscriptions of Sylla, the most worthless men
were allowed to put themselves forth as accusers.
2 The lacus Servilius was at Rome, and was the place where Sylla
murdered a great many Romans, and set up their heads, even the heads
of senators, to public view ; so that Seneca says of the lake, " id eniin
proscriptionis Sullanse spoliorum est."
3 This is a fragment of a play of Ennius ; by the words, " Phrygian
steel" he points out that these murders were chiefly committed by
slaves, great numbers of whom had lately been imported from Phrygia.
Facciolati thinks too that allusion is made to the Oriental and luxu
rious manners of Sylla.
4 In the Brutus Cicero speaks of Antistius as a tolerable speaker ; he
calls him here Priam, meaning that he acted as a sort of leader and
king among the accusers.
66 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
violence and tumultuous nature of war brings many things to
pass without the knowledge of the generals. While he who
was administering the main government was occupied in
other matters, there were men who in the meantime were
curing their own wounds; who rushed about in the darkness
and threw everything into confusion as if eternal night had
enveloped the whole Republic. And by such men as these I
wonder that the courts of justice were not burnt, that there
might be no trace left of any judicial proceedings ; for they
did destroy both judges and accusers. There is this advan
tage, that they lived in such a manner that even if they
wished it, they could not put to death all the witnesses; for
as long as the race of men exists,- there will not be wanting
men to accuse theia: as long as the state lasts, trials will
take place. But as I began to say, both Erucius, if he had
these arguments to use which I have mentioned, in any cause
of his, would be able to speak on them as long as he pleased,
and I can do the same. But I choose, as I said before, to
pass by them lightly, and only just to touch on each parti
cular, so that all men may perceive that I am not accusing
men of my own inclination, but only defending my own client
from a sense of duty.
XXXIII. I see therefore that there were many causes
which urged that man to this crime. Let us now see whether
he had any opportunity of committing it. Where was Sextus
Roscius slain? — at Rome. What of you, 0 Roscius? Where
were you at that time1? — at Rome. But what is that to the
purpose? many other men were there too. As if the point
now were, who of so vast a crowd slew him, and as if this
"were not rather the question, whether it is more probablo
that he who was slain at Rome was slain by that man who
was constantly at Rome at that time, or by him who for
many years had never come to Rome at all? Come, let us
consider now the other circumstances which might make it
easy for him. There was at that time a multitude of assas
sins, as Erucius has stated, and men were being killed with
impunity. What ! — what was that multitude ? A multitude,
I imagine, either of those who were occupied in getting pos-
Bession of men's property, or of those who were hired by
them to murder some one. If you think it was composed of
those who coveted other men's property, you are one of that
FOR S. ROSCIUS. 67
number, — you who are enriched by our wealth; if of those
whom they who call them by the lightest name call slayers,
inquire to whom they are bound, and whose dependents they
are, believe me you will find it is some one of your own con
federacy; and whatever you say to the contrary, compare it
with our defence, and by this means the cause of Sextus
Roscius will be most easily contrasted with yours. You will
say, " what follows if I was constantly at Rome 1 " I shall
answer, " But I was never there at all." " I confess that I
am a broker, but so are many other men also." " But I, as
you yourself accuse me of being, am a countryman and a
rustic." " It does not follow at once, because I have been
present with a troop of assassins, that I am an assassin my
self." " But at all events I, who never had even the acquain
tance of assassins, am far removed from such a crime." There
are many things which may be mentioned, by which it may
be understood that you had the greatest facilities for com
mitting this crime, which I pass over, not only because I do
not desire to accuse, but still more on this account, — because
if I were to wish to enumerate all the murders which were
then committed on the same account as that on which Sextus
Roscius was slain, I fear lest my speech would seem to refer
to others also.
XXXIV. Let us examine now briefly, as we have done in
the other particulars, what was done by you, 0 Titus Roscius,
after the death of Sextus Roscius j and these things are so
open and notorious, that by the gods, 0 judges, I am unwil
ling to mention them. For whatever your conduct may be,
O Titus Roscius, I am afraid of appearing to be so eager to
save my client, as to be quite regardless whether I spare you
or not. And as I am afraid of this, and as I wish to spare
you in some degree, as far as I can, saving my duty to my
client, I will again change my purpose. For the thoughts of
your countenance present here occur to my mind, that you,
when all the rest of your companions were flying and hiding
themselves in order that this trial might appear to be not
concerning their plunder, not concerning this man's crime,
should select this part above all others for yourself, to appear
at the trial and sit with the accuser, by which action you gain
nothing beyond causing your impudence and audacity to be
known to all mortal? After Sextus Roscius is slain, who is
68 CICERO S ORATIONS.
the first to take the news to Ameria? Mallius Glaucia, whom
I have named before, your own client and intimate friend.
What did it concern him above all men to bring the news of
what, if you had not previously formed some plan with refer
ence to his death and property, and had formed no conspiracy
with any one else, having either the crime or its reward for its
object, concerned you least of all men1? Oh, Mallius brought
the news of his own accord! What did it concern him, I beg1?
or, as he did not come to Ameria on account of this business,
did it happen by chance that he was the first to tell the news
which he had heard at Kome ? On what account did he come
to Ameria? I cannot conjecture, says he. I will bring the
matter to such a point that there shall be no need of conjec
ture. On what account did he announce it first to Roscius
Capito? When the house, and wife, and children of Sextus
Roscius were at Ameria; when he had so many kinsmen and
relations on the best possible terms with himself, on what ac
count did it happen that that client of yours, the reporter of
your wickedness, told it to Titus Roscius Capito above all
men? — He was slain returning home from supper. It was
not yet dawn when it was known at Ameria. Why was this
incredible speed? What does this extraordinary haste and
expedition intimate? I do not ask who struck the blow; you
have nothing to fear, 0 Glaucia. I do not shake you to see
if you have any weapon about you. I am not examining
that point ; I do not think I am at all concerned with that.
Since I have found out by whose design he was murdered, by
whose hand he was murdered I do not care. I assume one
point, which your open wickedness and the evident state of
the case gives me. Where, or from whom, did Glaucia hear
of it? Who knew it so immediately? Suppose he did hear
of it immediately ; what was the affair which compelled to
take so long a journey in one night? What was the great
necessity which pressed upon him, so as to make him, if he
was going to Ameria of his own accord, set out from Rome
at that time of night, and devote no part of the night to
sleep ?
XXXV. In a case so evident as this must we seek for argu
ments, or hunt for conjectures ? Do you not seem, 0 judges,
actually to behold with your own eyes what you have been
hearing ? Do you not see that unhappy man, ignorant of his
"FOR S. ROSCIUS. 69
fate, returning from supper ? Do you not see the ambush
that is laid 1 the sudden attack ? Is not Glaucia before your
eyes, present at the murder ? Is not that Titus Roscius pre
sent ? Is he not with his own hands plaeing that Automedon
in the chariot, the messenger of his most horrible wickedness
and nefarious victory1? Is he not entreating him to keep
a\vake that night 1 to labour for his honour 1 to take the news
to Capito as speedily as possible 1 Why was it that he wished
Capito to be the first to know it 1 I do not know, only I see
this, that Capito is a partner in this property. I see that, of
thirteen farms, he is in possession of three of the finest. I
hear besides, that this suspicion is not fixed upon Capito for
the first time now ; that he has gained many infamous vic
tories ; but that this is the first very splendid ' one which he
has gained at Rome ; that there is no manner of committing
murder in which he has not murdered many men; many by
the sword, many by poison. I can even tell you of one man
whom, contrary to the custom of our ancestors, he threw from
the bridge into the Tiber, when he was not sixty years of age ; 2
and if he comes forward, or when he comes forward, for I know
that he will come forward, he shall hear of him. Only let
him come; let him unfold that volume of his which I can
prove that Erucius wrote for him, which they say that he dis
played to Sextus Roscius, and threatened that he would
mention everything contained in it in his evidence. 0 the
excellent witness, 0 judges ; 0 gravity worthy of being attended
to ; 0 honourable course of life ! such that you may with
willing minds make your oaths depend upon his testimony !
In truth we should not see the crimes of these men so clearly,
if cupidity, and avarice, and audacity, did not render them
blind.
XXXVI. One of them sent a swift messenger from the very
1 The Latin word is lemniscatus, literally, adorned with ribands
hanging down as from a garland or crown. Palma lemniscata is a
palm branch (i.e. a token of victory,) given to a gladiator or general when
the victory was very remarkable. Cicero understands it of a murder
which was connected with very great gains. Riddle, Lat. Diet. v. Lem
niscatus.
2 There is a pun here on the word pans. Pans means not only a
bridge, but also the platform over which men passed to give their votes
at elections; and men above sixty had no votes, and as having none
were called depontati or dejecti de ponte.
70 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
scene of murder to Ameria, to his partner and his tutor ; so
that if every one wished to conceal his knowledge of whom
the guilt belonged to, yet he himself placed his wickedness
visibly before the eyes of all men. The other (if the immortal
Gods will only let him) is going to give evidence also against
Sextus Roscius. As if the matter now in question were,
whether what he said is to be believed, or whether what he
did is to be punished. Therefore it was established by the
custom of our ancestors, that even in the most insignificant
matters, the most honourable men should not be allowed to
give evidence in their own cause. Africanus, who declares by
his surname that he subdued a third part of the whole world,
still, if a case of his own were being tried, would not give
evidence. For I do not venture to say with respect to such a
man as that, if he did give evidence he would not be believed.
See now everything is altered, and changed for the worse.
When there is a trial about property and about murder, a man
is going to give evidence, who is both a broker and an assas
sin; that is, he who is himself the purchaser and possessor of
that very property about which the trial is taking place, and
who contrived the murder of the man whose death is being
inquired into. What do you want, 0 most excellent man ?
Have you anything to say ? Listen to me. Take care not to
be wanting to yourself; your own interest to a great extent
is at stake. You have done many things wickedly, many
things audaciously, many things scandalously ; one thing
foolishly, and that of your own accord, not by the advice of
Erucius. There was no need for you to sit there. For no
man employs a dumb accuser, or calls him as a witness, who
rises from the accuser's bench. There must be added to this,
that that cupidity of yours should have been a little more
kept back and concealed. Now what is there that any one of
you desire to hear, when what you do is such that you seem
to have done them expressly for our advantage against your
own interest ? Come now, let us see, 0 judges, what followed
immediately after.
XXXVII. The news of the death of Sextus Roscius is car
ried to Volaterra, to the camp of Lucius Sylla, to Chryso-
gonus, four days after he is murdered. I now again ask who
sent that messenger. Is it not evident that it was the same
man who sent the news to Ameria ? Chrysogonus takes care
FOR S. EOSCIUS. 71
that his goods shall be immediately sold; he who had neither
known the man nor his estate. But how did it occur to him
to wish for the farms of a man who was unknown to him,
whom he had never seen in his life ? You are accustomed, 0
judges, when you hear anything of this sort to say at once,
Some fellow-citizen or neighbour must have told him ; they
generally tell these things; most men are betrayed by such.
Here there is no ground for your entertaining this suspicion ;
for I will not argue thus. It is probable that the Roscii gave
information of that matter to Chrysogonus, for there was of
old, friendship between them and Chrysogonus ; for though
the Koscii had many ancient patrons and friends hereditarily
connected with them, they ceased to pay any attention and
respect to them, and betook themselves to the protection and
support of Chrysogonus. I can say all this with truth ; for
in this cause I have no need to rely on conjecture. I know
to a certainty that they themselves do not deny that Chryso
gonus made the attack on this property at their instigation.
If you see with your own eyes who has received a part of the
reward for the information, can you possibly doubt, 0 judges,
who gave the information 1 Who then are in possession of
that property; and to whom did Chrysogonus give a share in
it? The two Roscii! — Any one else? No one else, 0 judges.
Is there then any doubt that they put this plunder kt Chry-
sogonus's way, who have received from him a share of the
plunder ? Come now let us consider the action of the Roscii
by the judgment of Chrysogonus himself. If in that contest
the Roscii had done nothing which was worth speaking of, on
what account were they presented with such rewards by Chry
sogonus ? If they did nothing more than inform him of the
fact, was it not enough for him to thank them ? Why are
these farms of such value immediately given to Capito 1 Why
does that fellow Roscius possess all the rest in common pro
perty with Chrysogouus 1 Is it not evident, 0 judges, that
Chrysogonus, understanding the whole business, gave them as
spoils to the Roscii 1
XXXVIII. Capito came as a deputy to the camp, as one of
the ten chief men of Ameria. Learn from his behaviour on
this deputation the whole life and nature and manners of the
man. Unless you are of opinion, 0 judges, that there is no
duty and no right so holy and solemn that his wickedness and
/2 CICERO S ORATIONS.
perfidy has not tampered with and violated it, then judge him
to be a very excellent man. He is the hindrance to Sylla's
being informed of this affair ; he betrays the plans and inten
tions of the other deputies to Chrysogonus; he gives him
-warning to take care that the affair be not conducted openly;
he points out to him, that if the sale of the property be pre
vented, he will lose a large sum of money, and that he himself
•will be in danger of his life. He proceeds to spur him on, to
deceive those who were joined in the commission with him ;
to warn him continually to take care ; to hold out treacherously
false hopes to the others; in concert with him to devise plans
against them, to betray their counsels to him ; with him to
bargain for his share in the plunder, and, relying constantly
on some delay or other, to cut off from his colleagues all
access to Sylla. Lastly, owing to his being the prompter, the
adviser, the go-between, the deputies did not see Sylla ; de
ceived by his faith, or rather by his perfidy, as you may know
from themselves, if the accuser is willing to produce them1 as
witnesses, they brought back home with a false hope instead
of a reality. In private affairs if any one had managed a
business entrusted to him, I will not say maliciously for the
sake of his own gain and advantage, but even carelessly, our
ancestors thought that he had incurred the greatest disgrace.
Therefore, legal proceedings for betrayal of a commission are
established, involving penalties no less disgraceful than those
for theft. I suppose because, in cases where we ourselves can
not be present, the vicarious faith of friends is substituted ; and
he who impairs that confidence, attacks the common bulwark
of all men, and as far as depends on him, disturbs the bonds
of society. For we cannot do everything ourselves; different
people are more capable in different matters. On that account
friendships are formed, that the common advantage of all
may be secured by mutual good offices. Why do you under
take a commission, if you are either going to neglect it or to
turn it to your own advantage ? Why do you offer yourself
to me, and by feigned service hinder and prevent my advan
tage 1 Get out of the way, I will do my business by means
of some one else. You undertake the burden of adiity which
you think you are able to support ; a duty which does not
1 In a question of fact the accuser alone was permitted to summou
witnesses ; the defendant could not do so.
FOR S. EOSCIUS. 73
appear very heavy to those who are not very worthless them
selves.
XXXIX. This fault therefore is very base, because it violates
two most holy things, friendship and confidence ; for men
commonly do not entrust anything except to a friend, and do
not trust any one except one whom they think faithful. It is
therefore the part of a most abandoned man, at the same
time to dissolve friendship and to deceive him who would not
have been injured unless he had trusted him. Is it not so ?
In the most trifling affaii-s he who neglects a commission,
must be condemned by a most dishonouring sentence ; in a
matter of this importance, when he to whom the character of
the dead, the fortunes of the living have been recommended
and entrusted, loads the dead with ignominy and the living
with poverty, shall he be reckoned among honourable men,
shall he even be reckoned a man at all ? In trifling affairs,
in affairs of a private nature, even carelessness is accounted a
crime, and is liable to a sentence branding a man with infamy ;
because, if the commission be properly executed, the man who
has given the commission may feel at his ease and be careless
about it : he who has undertaken the commission may not.
In so important an affair as this, which was done by public
order and so entrusted to him, what punishment ought to be
inflicted on that man who has not hindered some private
advantage by his carelessness, but has polluted and stained by
his treachery the solemnity of the very commission itself? or
by what sentence shall he be condemned ? If Sextus Rosciua
had entrusted this matter to him privately to transact and
determine upon with Chrysogonus, and to involve his credit
in the matter if it seemed to him to be necessary — if he who
had undertaken the affair had turned ever so minute a point
of the business to his own advantage, would he not, if con
victed by the judge, have been compelled to make restitution,
and would he not have lost all credit ? Now it is not Sextus
Roscius who gave him this commission, but what is a much
more serious thing, Sextus Roscius himself, with his character,
his life, and all his property, is publicly entrusted by the sena
tors to Roscius ; and, of this trust, Titus Roscius has converted
not some small portion to his own advantage, but has turned
him entirely out of his property; he has bargained for three
farms for himself; he has considered the intention of the
74 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
senators and of all his fellow-citizens of just as much value as
his own integrity.
XL. Moreover, consider now, 0 judges, the other matters,
that you may see that no crime can be imagined with which
that fellow has not disgraced himself. In less important
matters, to deceive one's partner is a most shameful thing, and
equally base with that which I have mentioned before. And
rightly ; because he who has communicated an affair to another
thinks that he has procured assistance for himself. To whose
good faith, then, shall a man have recourse who is injured by
the want of faith in the man whom he has trusted? But
these offences are to be punished with the greatest severity
which are guarded against with the greatest difficulty. We
can be reserved towards strangers; intimate friends must see
many things more openly; but how can we guard against a
companion1? for even to be afraid of him is to do violence to
the rights of duty. Our ancestors therefore rightly thought
that he who had deceived his companion ought not to be con
sidered in the number of good men. But Titus Roscius did
not deceive one friend alone in a money matter, (which, al
though it be a grave offence, still appears possible in some
degree to be borne) but he led on, cajoled, and deserted nine
most honourable men, betrayed them to their adversaries, and
deceived them with every circumstance of fraud and perfidy.
They who could suspect nothing of his wickedness, ought not
to have been afraid of the partner of their duties ; they did not
see his malice, they trusted his false speech. Therefore these
most honourable men are now, on account of his treachery,
thought to have been incautious and improvident. He who
was at the beginning a traitor, then a deserter, — who at first
reported the counsels of his companions to their adversaries,
and then entered into a confederacy with the adversaries
themselves, even now terrifies us, and threatens us, adorned
with his three farms, that is, with the prizes of his wickedness.
In such a life as his, 0 judges, amid such numerous and enor
mous crimes, you will find this crime too, with which the
present trial is concerned. In truth you ought to make in
vestigation on this principle ; where you see that many things
have been done avariciously, many audaciously, many wickedly,
many perfidiously, there you ought to think that wickedness
also lies hid among so many crimes; although this indeed
FOB S. ROSCIUS. 75
does not lie hid at all, which is so manifest and exposed to
view, that it may be perceived, not by those vices which it is
evident exist in him, but even if any one of those vices be
doubted of, he may be convicted of it by the evidence of this
crime. What then, I ask, shall we say, 0 judges? Does this
gladiator seem entirely to have thrown off his former cha
racter 1 or does that pupil of his seem to yield but little to
his master in skill 1 Their avarice is equal, their dishonesty
similar, their impudence is the same ; the audacity of the one
is twin-sister to the audacity of the other.
XLI. Now forsooth, since you have seen the good faith of
the master, listen to the justice of the pupil. I have already
said before, that two slaves have been continually begged of
them to be put to the question. You have always refused it,
O Titus Roscius. I ask of you whether they who asked it
were unworthy to obtain it 1 or had he, on whose behalf they
asked it, no influence with you? or did the matter itself ap
pear unjust? The most noble and respectable men of our
state, whom I have named before, made the request, who
have lived in such a manner, and are so esteemed by the
Roman people, that there is no one who would not think
whatever they said reasonable. And they made the request
on behalf of a most miserable and unfortunate man, who
would wish even himself to be submitted to the torture, pro
vided the inquiry into his father's death might go on. More
over, the thing demanded of you was such that it made no
difference whether you refused it or confessed yourself guilty
of the crime. And as this is the case, I ask of you why you
refused it ? When Sextus Roscius was murdered they were
there. The slaves themselves, as far as I am concerned, I
neither accuse nor acquit ; but the point which I see you con
tending for, namely, that they be not submitted to the ques
tion, is full of suspicion. But the reason of their being held
in such horror by you, must be that they know something,
which, if they were to tell, will be pernicious to you. Oh,
say you, it is unjust to put questions to slaves against their
masters. Is any such question meant to be put ? For Sextus
Roscius is the defendant, and when inquiry is being made
into his conduct, you do not say that you are their masters.
Oh, they are with Chrysogonus. I suppose so ; Chrysogonus
is so taken with their learning and accomplishments, that he
76 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
wishes these men — men little better than labourers from the
training of a rustic master of a family at Ameria, to mingle
with his elsgant youths, masters of every art and every refine
ment — yoiiths picked out of many of the politest households.
That cannot be the truth, 0 judges; it is not probable that
Chrysogonus has taken a fancy to their learning or their polite
ness, or that he should be acquainted with their industry and
fidelity in the business of a household. There is something
which is hidden; and the more studiously it is hidden and kept
back by them, so much the more is it visible and conspicuous.
XLII. What, then, are we to think 1 Is Chrysogonus un
willing that these men shall be put to the question for the
sake of concealing his own crime? Not so, 0 judges; I do
not think that the same arguments apply to every one. As far
as I am concerned, I have no suspicion of the sort respecting
Chrysogonus, and this is not the first time that it has occurred
to me to say so. You recollect that I so divided the cause at
the beginning; into the accusation, the whole arguing of which
was entrusted to Erucius; and into audacity, the business of
which was assigned to the Roscii ; — whatever crime, whatever
wickedness, whatever bloodshed there is, all that is the business
of the Roscii. We say that the excessive interest and power of
Chrysogonus is a hindrance to us, and can by no means be
endured; and that it ought not only to be weakened, but even
to be punished by you, since you have the power given to you.
I think this ; that he who wishes these men to be put to the
question, whom it is evident were present when the murder was
committed, is desirous to find out the truth ; that he who re
fuses it, though he does not dare admit it in words, yet does
in truth by his actions, confesses himself guilty of the crime.
I said at the beginning, 0 judges, that I was unwilling to say
more of the wickedness of those men than the cause required,
and than necessity itself compelled me to say. For many
circumstances can be alleged, and every one of them can be
discussed with many arguments. But I cannot do for any
length of time, nor diligently, what I do against my will, and
by compulsion. Those things which could by no means be
passed over, I have lightly touched upon, 0 judges; those
things which depend upon suspicion, and which, if I begin to
speak of them, will require a copious discussion, I commit to
your capacities and to your conjectures.
FOR S. ROSCIUS. 77
XLIII. I come now to that golden name of Chrysogonus,-
under which name the whole confederacy is set up, — concern
ing whom, 0 judges, I am at a loss both how to speak and
how to hold my tongue ; for if I say nothing, I leave out a
great part of my argument, and if I speak, I fear that not he
alone (about whom I am not concerned), but others also may
think themselves injured; although the case is such that it
does not appear necessary to say much against the common
cause of the brokers. For this cause is, in truth, a novel and
an extraordinaiy cause. Chrysogonus is the purchaser of the
property of Sextus Roscius. Let us see this first, on what
pretence the property of that man was sold, or how they
could be sold. And I will not put this question, 0 judges, so
as to imply that it is a scandalous thing for the property of an
innocent man to be sold at all. For if these things are to be
freely listened to and freely spoken, Sextus Roscius was not a
man of such importance in the state as to make us complain
of his fortune more than of that of others. But I ask this,
how could they be sold even by that very law which is enacted
about proscriptions, whether it be the Valerian 2 or Cornelian
law, — for I neither know nor understand which it is — but by
that very law itself how could the property of Sextus Roscius
be sold? For they say it is written in it, " that the property
of those men who have been proscribed is to be sold ; " in
which number Sextus Roscius is not one : " or of those who
have been slain in the garrisons of the opposite party." While
there were any garrisons, he was in the garrisons of Sylla ;
after they laid down their arms, returning from supper, he
was slain at Rome in a time of perfect peace. If he was slain
by law, I admit that his property was sold by law too ; but if
it is evident that he was slain contrary to all laws, not merely
to old laws, but to the new ones also, then I ask by what
right, or in what manner, or by what law they were sold ?
XLIV. You ask, against whom do I say this, 0 Erucius.
Not against him whom you are meaning and thinking of; for
1 This is a pun on the name of Chrysogonus, as derived from the
Greek word xpvo-bs, gold ; and yovos, birth.
2 Valerius Flaccus had been created Interrex on the death of the two
consuls, Marius and Carbo. He appointed Sylla dictator, and passed a
law that whatever Sylla had done should be ratified ; so that Cicero's
meaning here is, that he does not know which was the nominal author
of the law he is quoting, Valerius or Sylla.
78 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
both my speech from the very beginning, and also his own
eminent virtue, at all times has acquitted Sylla. I say that
Chrysogomis did all this in order to tell lies; in order to make
out Roscius to have been a bad citizen; in order to represent
him as slain among the opposite pai-ty; in order to prevent
Lucius Sylla from being rightly informed of these matters by
the deputies from Ameria. Last of all, I suspect that this
property was never sold at all; and this matter I will open
presently, 0 judges, if you will give me leave. For I think
it is set down in the law on what day these proscriptions and
sales shall take place, forsooth on the first of January. Some
months afterwards the man was slain, and his property is said
to have been sold. Now, either this property has never been
returned in the public accounts, and we are cheated by this
scoundrel more cleverly than we think, or, if they were re
turned, then the public accounts have some way or other been
tampered with, for it is quite evident that the property could
not have been sold according to law. I am aware, 0 judges,
that I am investigating this point prematurely, and that I am
erring as greatly as if, while I ought to be curing a mortal
sickness of Sextus Roscius, I were mending a whitlow; for
he is not anxious about his money; he has no regard to any
pecuniary advantage ; he thinks he can easily endure his
poverty, if he is released from this unworthy suspicion, from
this false accusation. But I entreat you, 0 judges, to listen
to the few things I have still to say, under the idea that I am
speaking partly for myself, and partly for Sextus Roscius.
For the things which appear to me unworthy and intolerable,
and which I think concern all men unless we are prudent,
those things I now mention to you for my own sake, from
the real feelings and indignation of my mind. What relates
to the misfortunes of the life, and to the cause of my client,
and what he wishes to be said for him, and with what condi
tion he will be content, you shall hear, 0 judges, immediately
at the end of my speech. I ask this of Chrysogonus of my
own accord, leaving Sextus Roscius out of the question.
XLV. First of all, why the property of a virtuous citizen
was sold ? Next, why the property of a man who was neither
proscribed, nor slain in the garrisons of the opposite party,
were sold ; when the law was made against them alone 1 Next,
why were they sold long after the day which is appointed by
FOR S. ROSCIUS. 70
the law ? Next, why were they sold for so little 1 And if he
shall choose, as worthless and wicked freedmen are accustomed
to do, to refer all this to his patrons, he will do himself no
good by that. For. there is no one who does not know that
on account of the immensity of his business, many men did
many things of which Lucius Sylla knew very little. Is it
right, then, that in these matters anything should be passed
over without the ruler knowing it ? It is not right, 0 judges,
but it is inevitable. In truth, if the great and kind Jupiter,
by whose will and command the heaven, the earth, and
the seas are governed, has often by too violent winds, or by
immoderate tempests, or by too much heat, or by intolerable
cold, injured men, destroyed cities, or ruined the crops ;
nothing of which do we suppose to have taken place, for the
sake of causing injury, by the divine intention, but owing to
the power and magnitude of the affairs of the world ; but on
the other hand we see that the advantages which we have the
benefit of, and the light which we enjoy, and the air which we
breathe, are all given to and bestowed upon us by him ; how
can we wonder that Lucius Sylla, when he alone was govern
ing the whole republic, and administering the affairs of the
Avhole world, and strengthening by his laws the majesty of the
empire, which he had recovered by arms, should have been
forced to leave some things unnoticed ? Unless this is strange
that human faculties have not a power which divine might is
unable to attain to. But to say no more about what has
happened already, cannot any one thoroughly understand
from what is happening now, that Chrysogonus alone is the
author and contriver of all this, and that it is he who caused
Sextus Koscius to be accused1? this trial in which Erucius
says that he is the accuser out of regard for honour ....
******
XLVI. They think they are leading a convenient life, and
one arranged rationally, who have a house among the Salen-
tini or Brutii, from which they can scarcely receive news three
times a year. Another comes down to you from his palace
on the Palatine ; he has for the purposes of relaxation to his
mind a pleasant suburban villa, and many farms besides, and
not one which is not beautiful and contiguous ; a house filled
with Corinthian and Delian vessels, among which is that cele
brated stove which he has lately bought at so great a price, that
80 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
passers by, who heard the money being counted out thought
that a farm was being sold. What quantities besides of em
bossed plate, of embroidered quilts ; of paintings, of statues,
and of marble, do you think he has in his house 1 All, for
sooth, that in a time of disturbance and rapine can be crammed
into one house from the plunder of many magnificent families.
But why should I mention how vast a household too was his,
and in what various trades was it instructed 1 I say nothing
of those ordinary arts, cooks, bakers, and litter-bearers ; he
has so many slaves to gratify his mind and ears, that the
whole neighbourhood resounds with the daily music of voices,
and stringed instruments, and flutes. In such a life as this,
0 judges, how great a daily expense, and what extravagance
do you think there must be 1 And what banquets ? Honour
able no doubt in such a house ; if that is to be called a house
rather than a workshop of wickedness, and a lodging for every
sort of iniquity. In what a style he himself flutters through
the forum, with his hair curled and perfumed, and with a
great retinue of citizens, you yourselves behold, 0 judges ; iu
truth you see how he despises every one, how he thinks no one
a human being but himself, how he thinks himself the only
happy, the only powerful man. But if I were to wish to
mention wha£ he does and what he attempts, 0 judges, I am
afraid that some ignorant people would think that I wish to
injure the cause of the nobility, and to detract from their
victory ; although I have a right to find fault if anything
in that party displeases me. For I am not afraid that any
one will suppose that I have a disposition disaffected to the
cause of the nobility.
XLVIL They who know me, know that I, to the extent
of my small and insignificant power, (when that which I was
most eager for could not be brought about, I mean an accom
modation between the parties) laboured to ensure the victory
of that party which got it. For who was there who did not
see that meanness was disputing with dignity for the highest
honours 1 a contest in which it was the part of an abandoned
citizen not to unite himself to those, by whose safety dignity
at home and authority abroad would be preserved. And that
all this was done, and that his proper honour and rank was
restored to every one, I rejoice, 0 judges, and am exceedingly
delighted ; and I know that it was all done by the kindness
FOR S. ROSCIUS. 81
of the gods, by the zeal of the Roman people, by the wisdom,
and government, and good fortune l of Lucius Sylla. I have no
business to find fault with punishment having been inflicted
on those who laboured with all their energies on the other
side ; and I approve of honours having been paid to the brave
men whose assistance was eminent in the transaction of all
these matters. And I consider that the struggle was to a great
extent with this object, and I confess that I shared in that
desire in the part I took. But if the object was, and if arms
were taken with the view of causing the lowest of the people
to be enriched with the property of others, and of enabling
them to make attacks on the fortunes of every one, and if it
is unlawful not only to hinder that by deed, but even to blame
it in words, then the Roman people seems to me not to have
been strengthened and restored by that war, but to have been
subdued and crushed. But the case is totally different :
nothing of this, 0 judges, is the truth : the cause of the
nobility will not only not be injured if you resist these men,
but it will even be embellished.
XLVIII. In truth, they who are inclined to find fault with
this, complain that Chrysogonus has so much influence ; they
who praise it, declare that he has not so much allowed him.
And now it is impossible for any one to be either so foolish
or so worthless as to say : " I wish it were allowed me, I
would have said . . ." You may say ... "I would have
done ..." You may do ... No one hinders you. " I would
have decreed ..." " Decree, only decree rightly, every one
will approve." " I should have judged . . ." All will praise
you if you judge rightly and properly. While it was neces
sary and while the case made it inevitable, one man had all
the power, and after he created magistrates and established
laws, his own proper office and authority was restored to
every one. And if those who recovered it wish to retain it,
they will be able to retain it for ever. But if they either par
ticipate in or approve of these acts of murder and rapine,
these enormous and prodigal expenses — I do not wish tc say
anything too severe against them ; not even as an omen ; but
this one thing I do say ; unless those nobles of ours are
1 Cicero dwells on the Felicitas of Sylla, because Felix was the name
which Sylla himself assumed, priding himself especially on his good
fort une.
82 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
vigilant, and virtuous, and brave, and merciful, they must
abandon their honours to those men in whom these qualities
do exist. Let them, therefore, cease at least to say that a man
speaks badly, if he speak truly and with freedom ; let them
cease to make common cause "with Chrysogonus ; let them
cease to think, if he be injured, that any injury has been done
to them ; let them see how shameful and miserable a thing
it is that they, who could not tolerate the splendour of
the knights, should be able to endure the domination of a
most worthless slave — a domination, which, 0 judges, was
formerly exerted in other matters, but now you see what a
road it is making for itself, what a course it is aiming at,
against your good faith, against your oaths, against your
decisions, against almost the only thing which remains un-
corrupted and holy in the state. Does Chrysogonus think
that in this particular too he has some influence 1 Does he
even wish to be powerful in this 1 0 miserable and bitter
circumstance ! Nor, in truth, am I indignant at this, because
I am afraid that he may have some influence; but I complain
of the mere fact of his having dared this, of his having hoped
that with such men as these he could have any influence to
the injury of an innocent man.
XLIX. Is it for this that the nobility has roused itself, that
it has recovered the republic by arms and the sword, — in order
that freedmen and slaves might be able to maltreat the pro
perty of the nobles, and all your fortunes and ours, at their
pleasure 1 If that was the object, I confess that I erred in
being anxious for their success. I admit that I was mad in
espousing their party, although I espoused it, 0 judges,
without taking up arms. But if the victory of the nobles
ought to be an ornament and an advantage to the republic
and the Roman people, then, too, my speech ought to be very
acceptable to every virtuous and noble man. But if there be
any one who thinks that he and his cause is injured when
Chrysogonus is found fault with, he does not understand his
cause, I may almost say he does not know himself. For the
cause will be rendered more splendid by resisting every worth
less man. The worthless favourers of Chrysogonus, who think
that his cause and theirs are identical, are injured themselves
by separating themselves from such splendour. But all this
that I have been now saying, as I mentioned before, is said
FOR S. ROSCIUS. 83
oil ray own account, though the republic, and my own indig
nation, and the injuries done by these fellows, have compelled
rue to say it. But Roscius is indignant at none of these
things ; he accuses no one ; he does not complain of the loss
of his patrimony ; he, ignorant of the world, rustic and clown
that he is, thinks that all those things which you say were
done by Sylla were done regularly, legally, and according to
the law of nations. If he is only exempted from blame and
acquitted of this nefarious accusation, he will be glad to leave
the court ; if he is freed from this unworthy suspicion, he
says that he can give up all his property with equanimity.
He begs and entreats you, 0 Chrysogonus, if he has converted
no part of his father's most ample possessions to his own use ;
if he has defrauded you in no particular; if he has given up
to you and paid over and weighed out to you all his posses
sions with the most scrupulous faith ; if he has given up to you
the very garment with which he was clothed, and the ring off
his finger; if he has stripped himself bare of everything, and
has excepted nothing, — he entreats you, I say, that he may be
allowed to pass his life in innocence and indigence, supported
by the assistance of his friends.
L. " You are in possession of my farms," says he ; "I am
living on the charity of others ; I do not object to that, both
because I have a calm mind, and because it is inevitable.
My own house is open to you, and is closed against myself.
I endure that. You are master of my numerous household ;
I have not one slave. I submit to that, and think it is
to be borne." What would you have more ? What are you
aiming at 1 Why are you attacking me now ? In w.hat
point do you think your desires injured by me ? In what
point do I stand in the way of your advantage? In
what do I hinder you ? If you wish to slay the man for
the sake of his spoils, you have despoiled him. What do
you want more 1 If you want to slay him out of enmity,
what enmity have you against him whose farms you took pos
session of before you knew himself ? If you fear him, can you
fear anything from him who you see is unable to ward off so
atrocious an injury from himself? If, because the possessions
which belonged to Roscius have become yours, on that
account you seek to destroy his son, do you not show that you
are afraid of that which you above all other men ought not
04 CICERO S ORATIONS.
to be afraid of ; namely, that some time or other their father's
property may be restored to the children of proscribed
persons 1 You do wrong, 0 Chrysogonus, if you place greater
hope of being able to preserve your purchase, than in those
exploits which Lucius Sylla has performed. But if you have
no cause for wishing this unhappy man to be afflicted with
such a grievous calamity ; if he has given up to you every
thing but his life, and has reserved to himself nothing of his
paternal property, not even as a memorial of his father, — then,
in the name of the gods, what is the meaning of this cruelty,
of this savage and inhuman disposition 1 What bandit was
ever so wicked, what pirate was ever so barbarous, as to prefer
stripping off his spoils from his victim stained with his blood,
when he might possess his plunder unstained, without blood]
You know that the man has nothing, dares do nothing, has
110 power, has never harboured a thought against your estate ;
and yet you attack him whom you cannot fear, and ought not
to hate ; and when you see he has nothing left which you can
take away from him — unless you are indignant at this, that
you see him sitting with his clothes on in this court whom
you turned naked out of his patrimony, as if off a wreck • as
if you did not know that he is both fed and clothed by
Caecilia, the daughter of Balearicus,1 the sister of Nepos, a
most incomparable woman, who, though she had a most illus
trious father, most honourable uncles, a most accomplished
brother, yet, though she was a woman, carried her virtue so
far, as to confer on them no less honour by her character than
she herself received from their dignity.
LI. Does it appear to you a shameful thing that he is
defended with earnestness 1 Believe me, if, in return for the
hospitality and kindness of his father, all his hereditary friends
were to choose to be present and dared to speak with freedom,
he would be defended numerously enough ; and if, because of
the greatness of the injury, and because the interests of the
whole republic are imperilled by his danger, they all were to
punish this conduct, you would not in truth be able to sit in
1 In the tenth chapter she is called the daughter of Metellus Nepos ;
RO, if the reading there be correct, it must be corrupt here, which is
probably the case. According to Graevius, she was a woman held in
such esteem that, in the Marsic war, the temple of Juno Sospita was
restored by a decree of the senate in compliance with a dream seen by
her, as Cicero records in the treatise De Divinatione.
FOR S. ROSC1US. 85
that place. Now he is defended so that his adversaries ought
not to be indignant at it, and ought not to think that they
are surpassed in power. What is done at home is done by
means of Ceecilia ; the management of what takes place in the
forum and court of justice, Messala, as you, 0 judges, see,
has undertaken. And if he were of an age and strength equal
to it, he would speak himself for Sextus Koscius. But since
his age is an obstacle to his speaking, and also his modesty
which sets off his age, he has entrusted the cause to me, who
he knew was desirous of it for his sake, and who ought to be
so. He himself, by his assiduity, by his wisdom, by his
influence, and by his industry, has taken care that the life of
Sextus Roscius, having been saved out of the hands of assassins,
should be committed to the decisions of the judges. Of a
truth, 0 judges, it was for this nobility that the greatest part
of the city was in arms ; this was all done that the nobles
might be restored to the state, who would act as you see
Messala acting ; who would defend the life of an innocent
man ; who would resist injury ; who would rather show what
power they had in procuring the safety than the destruction
of another. And if all who were born in the same rank did
the same, the republic would be less harassed by them, and
they themselves would be less harassed by envy,
LI I. But if, 0 judges, we cannot prevail with Chrysogonus
to be content with our money, and not to •aim at our life ; if
he cannot be induced, when he has taken from us everything
which was our private property, not to wish to take away this
light of life also which we have in common with all the world ;
if he does not consider it sufficient to glut his avarice with
money, if he be not also dyed with blood cruelly shed,— there
is one refuge, 0 judges ; there is one hope left to Sextus
Eoscius, the same which is left to the republic, — your ancient
kindness and mercy ; and if that remain, we can even yet be
saved. But if that cruelty which at present stalks abroad in
the republic has made your dispositions also more harsh and
cruel, (but that can never be the case,) then there is an end
of everything, 0 judges ; it is better to live among brute
beasts than in such a savage state of things as this. Are you
reserved for this ] Are you chosen for this 1 to condemn those
whom cut-throats and assassins have not been able to murder ?
Good generals are accustomed to do this, when they engage in
&6 CICEKOS ORATIONS.
battle, — to place soldiers in that spot where they think the
enemy will retreat, and then if any escape from the battle
they make an onset on them unexpectedly. I suppose in the
same way those purchasers of property think that you, that
such men as you, are sitting here to catch those who have
escaped out of their hands. God forbid, 0 judges, that this,
which our ancestors thought fit to style the public council,
should now be considered a guard to brokers ! Do not you
perceive, 0 judges, that the sole object of all this is to get rid
of the children of proscribed persons by any means ; and that
the first step to such a proceeding is sought for in your oaths
and in the danger of Sextus Roscius ? Is there any doubt to
whom the guilt belongs, when you see on one side a broker,
an enemy, an assassin, the same being also now our accuser,
r and on the other side a needy man, the son of the murdered
man, highly thought of by his friends, on whom not only no
crime but no suspicion even can be fixed ? Do you see any
thing else whatever against Roscius except that his father's
property has been sold ?
LIII. And if you also undertake that cause; if you offer
your aid in that business; if you sit there in order that the
children of those men whose goods have been sold may be
brought before you ; beware, in God's name, 0 judges, lest a
new and much more cruel proscription shall seem to have
been commenced by you. Though the former one was directed
against those who could take arms, yet the Senate would not
adopt it lest anything should appear to be done by the public
authority more severe than had been established by the usages
of our ancestors. And unless you by your sentence reject
and spurn from yourselves this one which concerns their
children and the cradles of their infant babes, consider, in
God's name, 0 judges, to what a state you think the republic
wftl arrive.
It behoves wise men, and men endowed with the authority
and power with which you are endowed, to remedy especially
those evils by which the republic is especially injured. There
is not one of you who does not understand that the Roman
people, who used formerly to be thought extremely merciful
towards its enemies, is at present suffering from cruelty exer
cised towards its fellow-citizens. Remove this disease out
of the state, 0 judges. Do not allow it to remain any longer
FOE Q. ROSCIUS THE ACTOR. 87
in the republic; having not only this evil in itself, that it has
destroyed so many citizens in a most atrocious manner, but
that through habituating them to sights of distress, it has
even taken away clemency from the hearts of most merciful
men. For when every hour we see or hear of something very-
cruel being done, even we who are by nature most merciful,
through the constant repetition of miseries, lose from our
minds every feeling of humanity.
THE SPEECH FOR QDINTIUS ROSCIUS THE ACTOR.
THE ARGUMENT.
AFTER the last speech, which was delivered A. u. c. 674, Cicero went to
Athens, where he remained eighteen months ; and after his return he
did not employ himself at first as an advocate, but devoted himself
rather to philosophical studies. But in the third year, A. u. o. 677,
when his friend Roscius, the comic actor, was interested in a cause, he
returned to the bar. The subject of the action in which this speech
was delivered was this : — A man of the name of Fannius Chserea had
articled a young slave to Roscius, on condition that Roscius was to
teach him the art of acting, and that he and Fannius were afterwards
to share his earnings. The slave was ^>fter wards killed, and Rosciua
brought an action against the man who had killed him, Quintus
Flavius by name, and received as damages a farm worth 100,000
sesterces— for his half-share in the slave, according to his own account,
but as the full value of the slave according to Fannius ; but the fact
was that Fannius also had brought an action against Flavius, and had
recovered similar damages. Fannius sued Roscius for 50,000 sesterces,
as his share of the damages which he, (Roscius,) had received from
Flavius, suppressing the fact of his having obtained a similar sum
himself. The beginning of this speech is lost, and also a consider
able portion at the end.
I HE, forsooth, excellent man, and of singular in
tegrity, endeavours in his own cause to bring forward his own
account-books as witnesses. Men are accustomed to say 1
Did I endeavour to corrupt such a man as that, so as to
induce him to make a false entry for my sake 1 I am waiting
1 There is a hiatus here, so that though there are some words more
in the Latin text, which I have omitted, it is impossible to make any
sense of them.
88 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
till Chserea uses this argument. Was I able to induce this
hand to be full of falsehood, and these fingers to make a false
entry 1 But if he produces his accounts, Roscius will also
produce his. These words will appear in the books of the
one, but not in those of the other. Why should" you trust
one rather than the other 1 Oh, would he ever have written
it if he had not borne this expense by his authority 1 No,
says the other, would he not have written it if he had given
the authority 1 For just as it is discreditable to put down
what is not owed, so it is dishonest not to put down what you
do owe. For his accounts are just as much condemned who
omits to make an entry of the truth, as his who puts down
what is false. But see now to what, relying on the abundance
and cogency of my arguments, I am now coming. If Caius
Fannius produces in his own behalf his accounts of money
received and paid, written at his own pleasure, I do not object
to your giving your decision in his favour. What brother
would show so much indulgence to a brother, what father to
a son, as to consider whatever he entered in this manner proof
of a fact? Oh, Roscius will ratify it. Produce your books;
what you were convinced of, he will be convinced of; what
was approved of by you, will be approved of by him. A little
while ago we demanded the accounts of Marcus Perperna, and
of Publius Saturius. Now, 0 Caius Fannius Chserea, we de
mand your accounts alone, and we do not object to the action
being decided by them — Why then do you not produce them ?
Does he not keep accounts ? Indeed he does most carefully.
Does he not enter small matters in his books ? Indeed he
does — everything. Is this a small and trifling sum 1 It is
100,000 sesterces. How is it that such an extraordinary sum
is omitted ] — how is it that a hundred thousand sesterces, re
ceived and expended, are not down in the books 1 Oh, ye
immortal gods ! that there should be any one endued with
such audacity, as to dare to demand a sum which he is afraid
to enter in his account-books ; not to hesitate to swear before
the court to what, when not on his oath, he scrupled to put
on paper ; to endeavour to persuade another of what he is
unable to make out to his own satisfaction.
II. He says that I am indignant, and sent the accounts too
soon; he confesses that he has not this sum entered in his
book of money received and expended ; but he asserts that it
FOR Q. ROSCIUS THE ACTOR. 89
does occur in his memoranda. Are you then, so fond of your
self, have you such a magnificent opinion of yourself, as to
ask for money from us on the strength, not of your account-
books, but of your memoranda 1 To read one's account-books
instead of producing witnesses, is a piece of arrogance ; but is
it not insanity to produce mere notes of -writings and scraps
of paper ? If memoranda have the same force and authority,
and are arranged with the same care as accounts, where is the
need of making an account-book 1 of making out careful
lists 1 of keeping a regular order ? of making a permanent
record of old writings ? But if we have adopted the custom
of making account-books, because we put no trust in flying
memoranda, shall that which, by all individuals, is considered
unimportant and not to be relied on, be considered important
and holy before a judge 1 Why is it that we write down
memoranda carelessly, that we make up account-books care
fully ? For what reason '? Because the one is to last a month,
the other for ever ; these are immediately expunged, those are
religiously preserved ; these embrace the recollection of a
short time, those pledge the good faith and honesty of a man
for ever ; these are thrown away, those are arranged in order.
Therefore, no one ever produced memoranda at a trial j men
do produce accounts, and read entries in books.
III. You, 0 Caius Piso, a man of the greatest good faith,
and virtue, and dignity, and authority, would not venture to
demand money on the strength of memoranda. I need not
say any more about matters in which the custom is so noto
rious ; but I ask you this, which is very material to the ques
tion, How long ago is it, 0 Fannius, that you made this entry
in your memoranda 1 He blushes ; he does not know what to
answer ; he is at a loss for anything to invent off-hand. " It is
two months ago," you will say; yet it ought to have been
copied into the account-book of money received and paid.
" It is more than six months." Why then is it left so long in
the memorandum-book 1 What if it is more than three years
ago ? How is it that, when every one else who makes up
account-books transfers his accounts every month almost
into his books, you allow this sum to remain among your
memoranda more than three years? Have you all other
sums of money received and expended regularly entered, or
not ? If not, how is it that you make up your books 1 If
90 CICERO S ORATIONS.
you have, how is it that, when you were entering all other
items in regular order, you leave this sum, which was one of
the greatest of all in amount, for more than three years in
your memoranda 1 " You did not like it to be known that
Koscius was in your debt." Why did you put it down at all ?
" You were asked not to enter it." Why did you put it down
in your memoranda ? But, although I think this is strong
enough, yet I cannot satisfy myself unless I get evidence
from Caius Fannius himself that this money is not owed to
him. It is a great thing which I am attempting ; it is a
difficult thing which I am undertaking ; yet I will agree that
Roscius shall not gain the verdict unless he has the same man
both for his adversary and for his witness.
IV. A definite sum of money was owed to you, which is
now sought to be recovered at law ; and security for a legiti
mate portion of it has been given. In this case, if you have
demanded one sesterce more than is owed to you, you have
lost your cause ; because trial before a judge is one thing,
arbitration is another.1 Trial before a judge is about a definite
sum of money ; arbitration about one which is not determined.
We come before a judge so as either to gain the whole suit or
1 Professor Long's explanation of the difference here laid down is
little more than a translation of and comment on this passage. He says,
" The following is the distinction between arbitrium and judicium
according to Cicero. (Pro Eosc. Com. 4.) In a judicium the demand
was of a certain or definite amount, (pecunicv certce); in an arbitrium the
amount was not determined (incertce.) In a judicium the plaintiff
obtained all that he claimed or nothing, as the words of the formula
show, " Si paret H. S. 1000 dari oportere." (Compare Gaius, iv. 50.)
The corresponding words in the formula arbitraria were " Quantum
zequius melius, id dari;" and their equivalents were "ex fide bonft;
ut inter bonos bene agier." (Top. 17) ... If the matter was brought before
a judcx, properly so called, the judicium was constituted with apcena,
that is per sponsionem; there was no pcena when an arbiter was
demanded, and the proceeding was by the formula arbitraria. The
proceeding by the sponsio then was the strict one, "Angustissima
formula sponsionis," (Cic. pro Eosc. Com. 14) ; that of the arbitrium was
ex fide bona, and the arbiter, though he was bound by the instructions of
the formula, was allowed a greater latitude by its terms. The engage
ment between the parties who accepted an arbiter, by which they bound
themselves to abide by his arbitrium, was compromissum. (Pro Rose.
Com. 4.) But this term was also employed, as it appears, to express
the engagement by which parties agreed to settle their differences '
by arbitration, without the intervention of the praetor. Smith, Diet.
Ant. D. 530, v. Judex.
FOR Q. ROSCIUS THE ACTOR. 91
to lose it ; "we go before an arbiter on the understanding that
we may not get all we asked, and on the other hand may not
get nothing. Of that the very words of the formula are a
proof. What is the formula in a trial before a judge 1 Direct,
severe, and simple ; " if it be plain that fifty thousand ses
terces ought to be paid." Unless he makes it plain that fifty
thousand sesterces to a single farthing are due to him, he
loses his cause. What is the formula in a cause brought
before an arbiter 1 " That whatever is just and right shall
be given." But that man confesses that he is asking more
than is owed to him, but that he will be satisfied and more
than satisfied with what is given him by the arbiter. There-
foi-e the one has confidence in his case, the other distrusts his.
And as this is the case, T ask you why you made an agree
ment to abide by arbitration in a matter involving this sum,
this very fifty thousand sesterces, and the credit of your own
account-books 1 why you admitted an arbitrator in such a
case to decide what it was right and proper should be paid to
you ; or secured to you by bond, if it so seemed good to
him ? Who was the arbitrator in this matter ? I wish he
were at Rome. He is at Rome. I wish he were in court.
He is. I wish he were sitting as assessor to Caius Piso. He
is Caius Piso himself. Did you take the same man for both
arbitrator, and judge 1 Did you permit to the same man un
limited liberty of varying his decision, and also limit him to
the strictest formula of the bond1? Who ever went before an
arbitrator and got all that he demanded 1 No one ; for he
only got all that it was just should be given him. You have
come before a judge for the very same sum for which you had
recourse to an arbiter. Other men, when they see that their
cause is failing before a judge, fly to an arbitrator. This man
has dared to come from an arbiter to a judge, who when he
admitted an arbitrator about this money, and about the credit
due to his account-books, gave a plain indication that no
money was owing to him. Already two-thirds of the cause
are over. He admits that he has not set down the sum as
due, and he does not ventui-e to say that he has entered it as
paid, since he does not produce his books. The only alterna
tive remaining, is for him to assert that he had received a
promise of it ; for otherwise I do not see how he can possibly
demand a definite sum of money.
92 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
V. Did you receive a promise of it ? When 1 On what
day ? At what time 1 In whose presence 1 Who says that
I made^such a promise 1 No one. If I were to make an
end of speaking here, I appear to have said enough to acquit
myself as far as my good faith and diligence are at stake — to
have said enough for the cause and dispute, enough for the
formula and bond ; I seem to have said enough to satisfy the
judge why judgment ought to pass for Roscius. A definite
sum of money has been demanded ; security is given for a
third part of it ; this money must either have been given, or
set down as paid, or promised. Fannius admits it was not
given ; the books of Fannius prove that it has not been set
down as paid ; the silence of witnesses proves that it was
never promised. What do we want more 1 Because the
defendant is a man to whom money has always seemed of no
value, but character of the very highest, and the judge is a
man whom we are no less anxious to have think well of
us than to decide favourably for us, and the bar present
is such, that on account of its extraordinary brilliancy we
ought to feel almost as much respect for it as for another
judge, — we will speak as if every regular trial, every honorary
arbitration, every domestic duty were included and compre
hended in the present formula. That former oration was
necessary, this shall be a voluntary one ; the other was
addressed to the judge, this is addressed to Caius Piso ; that
was on behalf of a defendant, this is on behalf of Eoscius ;
the one was prepared to gain a victory, this one to preserve a
good character.
VI. You demand, 0 Fannius, a sum of money from Roscius.
What sum 1 Is it money which is owed to you from the
partnership 1 or money which has been promised and assured
to you by his liberality 1 One demand is important and
odious, the other is more trifling and easy to be got rid of.
Is it a sum which is owing from the partnership 1 What are
you saying ? This is neither to be borne lightly nor to be
defended carelessly. For if there are any private actions
of the greatest, I may almost say, of capital importance, they
are these three, — the actions about trust, about guardianship,
and about partnership. For it is equally perfidious and
wicked to break faith, which is the bond of life, and to
defraud one's ward who has come under one's guardianship,
FOR Q. ROSCIUS THE ACTOR. 93
and to deceive a partner who has connected himself with one
in business. And as this is the case, let us consider who
it is who in this instance has deceived and cheated his partner.
For his past life shall silently give us a trustworthy and im
portant testimony one way or other. Is it Quintus Iloscius ?
What do you say 1 Does not, as fire dropped upon water is
immediately extinguished and cooled, so, does not, I say, a
false accusation, when brought in contact with a most pure
and holy life, instantly fall and become extinguished 1 Has
Iloscius cheated his partner ? Can this guilt belong to this
man ? who, in truth, (I say it boldly,) has more honesty than
skill, more truth than learning ; whom the Roman people
think even a better man than he is an actor ; who is as
worthy of the stage because of his skill, as he is worthy
of the senate on account of his moderation. But why am
I so foolish as to say anything about Roscius to Piso 1 I sup
pose I am recommending an unknown man in many words.
Is there any man in the whole world of whom you have
a better opinion ? Is there any man who appears to you
more pure, more modest, more humane, more regardful of
his duty, more liberal 1 Have even you, 0 Saturius, who
appear against him, have you a different opinion ? Is it not
true that as often as you have mentioned his name in the
cause, you have said that he was a good man, and have spoken
of him with expressions of respect ? which no one is in the
habit of doing except in the case of either a most honourable
man, or of a most dear friend. While doing so, in truth, you
appeared to me ridiculously inconstant in both injuring and
praising the same man ; in calling him at the same time
a most excellent man and a most dishonest man. You were
speaking of the man with respect, and calling him a most
exemplary man, and at the same time you were accusing
him of having cheated his partner. But I imagine the truth
is, your praise was prompted by truth ; the accusation by
your duty to your client. You were speaking of Iloscius as
you really thought ; you were conducting the cause according
to the will of Chaerea. Roscius cheated him.
VII. This, in truth, seems absurd to the ears and minds of
men. What ? If he had got hold of some man, rich, timid,
foolish and indolent, who was unable to go to law with him,
still it would be incredible. But let us see whom he has
94: CICERO'S ORATIONS.
cheated. Roscius has cheated Caius Fanuius Chserea. I beg
and entreat you, who know them both, compare the lives of
the two men together ; you who do not know them, compare
the countenance of both. Does not his very head, and those
eyebrows entirely shaved off, seem to smell of wickedness, and
to proclaim cunning ? Does he not from his toe-nails to his
head, if the voiceless figure of a man's person can enable men
to conjecture his character, seem wholly made up of fraud, and
cheating, and lies 1 He who has his head and eyebrows always
shaved that he may not be said to have one hair of an honest
man about him. And Roscius has been accustomed to repre
sent his figure admirably on the stage, and yet he does not
meet with the gratitude due to such kindness. For when
he acts Ballio, that most worthless and perjured pimp, he
represents Chserea. That foul, and impure, and detestable
character is represented in this man's manners, and nature,
and life. And why he should have thought Roscius like
himself in dishonesty and wickedness, I do not know ; unless,
perhaps, because he observed that he imitated himself admi
rably in the character of the pimp. Wherefore consider over
and over again, 0 Caius Piso, who is said to have cheated,
and who to have been cheated. Roscius is said to have
cheated Fannius ? What is that ? The honest man is said
to have cheated the rogue ; the modest man, the shameless
one ; the chaste man, the perjurer ; the unpractised man, the
cunning one ; the liberal man is said to have cheated the
covetous one. It is incredible how, if Fannius were said to
have cheated Roscius, each fact would appear probable from
the character of each man ; both that Fannius had acted
wickedly, and that Roscius had been cheated by his impru
dence. So when Roscius is accused of having cheated Fannius,
both parts of the story are incredible, both that Roscius should
have sought anything covetously, and that Fannius should
have lost anything by his good-nature.
VIII. Such is the beginning. Let us see what follows.
Quintus Roscius has cheated Fannius of 50,000 sesterces.
On what account ? Saturius smiles ; a cunning fellow, as he
seems to himself. He says, for the sake of the fifty thousand
sesterces. I see ; but yet I ask why he was so exceedingly
desirous of this particular fifty thousand sesterces 1 For
certainly, 0 Marcus Perperna and Caius Piso, they would not
FOR Q. ROSCIUS THE ACTOR. 95
have been of such consequence to either of you, as to make
you cheat your partner. I ask, then, why they were of sxich
consequence to Roscius ? Was he in -want of money ? No,
he was even a rich man. Was he in debt1? On the con
trary, he was living within his income. Was he avaricious ?
Far from it ; even before he was a rich man he was always
most liberal and munificent. Oh, in the name of good faith,
of gods, and men ! he who once refused to make a gain
of three hundred thousand sesterces— for he certainly both
could and would have earned three hundred thousand ses
terces if Dionysia1 can earn two hundred thousand, — did he
seek to acquire fifty thousand by the greatest dishonesty, and
wickedness and treachery] And that sum was immense,
this trifling ; that was honourable, this sordid ; that was
pleasant, this bitter ; that would have been his own, this
must have been stated on an action and a trial. In these
last ten years he might have earned six millions of sesterces
most honourably. He would not ; he undertook the labour
entitled to gain, but refused the gain of his labour. He did
not yet desist from serving the Roman people ; he has long
since ceased to benefit himself. Would you even do this,
O Fannius 1 And if you were able to receive such profits,
would you not act with all your gestures, and even at the risk
of your life 1 Say now that you have been cheated of fifty
thousand sesterces by Roscius, who has refused such enormous
sums, not because he was too indolent to labour for them, but
out of a magnificence of liberality. What now shall I say of
these things which I know to a certainty occur to your minds,
O judges ? Roscius cheated you in a partnership. There are
laws, there are formularies 2 established for every case, that no
one may make a blunder, either as to the legal description of
injury which he has suffered, or as to the sort of action he
should bring ; for public formula have been given by the
praetor to suit every evil, or vexation, or inconvenience, or
1 Dionysia was a celebrated dancer.
2 "As ike formula comprehended, or were supposed to comprehend,
every possible form of action that could be required by a plaintiff, it was
presumed that he could find among all the formula some one which was
adapted to his case ; and he was accordingly supposed to be without
excuse if he did not take pains to select the proper formula." — Cic. prc
Rose. Com. 8. Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 9, v. Actio.
96 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
calamity, or injury which any one can suffer ; and to these
each private action is adapted.
IX. And as this is the case, I ask why you have not Roscius
as your partner before an arbitrator? Did you not know the
formula? It was most notorious. "Were you unwilling to
adopt severe proceedings ? Why so ? On account of your
ancient intimacy 1 Why then do you injure him now 1 On
account of the integrity of the man ? Why then do you
accuse him now 1 On account of the magnitude of the crime ?
Is it so ? The man whom you could not circumvent before
a,n arbitrator, to whose decision such a matter properly be
longed, will you seek to convict before a judge, who has no
power of arbitrating in it 1 Either, then, bring this charge
where it may be discussed, or do not bring it where it may
not : although the charge is already done away with by your
own evidence ; for when you declined to adopt that formula,
you showed that he had committed no fraud against the part
nership. Oh, he made a covenant. Has he account-books,
or not? If he has not, how is the covenant shown? If he
has, why do you not tell us ? Say now, if you dare, that
Roscius begged of you to appoint his own intimate friend
arbitrator. He did not beg you to. Say that he made a
covenant in order to procure his acquittal. He made no
covenant. Ask why then he was acquitted ? Because he was
a man of the most perfect innocence and integrity. For what
happened ? You came of your own accord to the house of
Roscius ; you apologised to him ; you begged him to announce
to the judge that you had acted hastily, and to pardon you ;
you said that you would not appear against him ; you said
loudly that he owed you nothing on account of the partner
ship. He gave notice to the judge; he was acquitted. And
still do you dare to mention dishonesty and theft ? He per
sists in his impudence. I did all this, says he, for he had
made a covenant with me. Yes, I suppose to procure his
acquittal. What reason had he to fear that he would be
condemned ? Oh, the matter was evident, the theft was unde
niable. A theft of what ? He begins, in a manner to create
great expectations, to relate his partnership with the old actor.
X. Panurgus, says he, was a slave of Fannius. He had an
equal share in him with Roscius. Here in the first place
' Saturius began to complain bitterly that Roscius had had a
FOR Q. EOSCIUS THE ACTOR. 97
share in him given to him for nothing, when he had become the
property of Fannius by purchase. That liberal man, forsooth,
that extravagant man, that man overflowing with kindness,
made a present of his share to Roscius ? No doubt of it.
Since he rested on this point for a while, it is necessary for
me also to dwell a little on it. You say, 0 Saturius. that
Panurgus was the private property of Fannius. But I say
that the whole of him belonged to Roscius, for how much of
him belonged to Fannius 1 His body. How much to Roscius 1
His education. His person was of no value; his skill was
valuable. As far as he belonged to Fannius, he was not worth
fifty thousand sesterces ; as far as he belonged to Roseius, he
was worth more than a hundred thousand. For no one looked
at him because of his person ; but people estimated him by
his skill as a comic actor. For those limbs could not earn by
themselves more than twelve sesterces ; owing to the educa
tion which was given him by Roscius, he let himself out for
not less than a hundred thousand. Oh, tricky and scanda
lous partnership, when the one brings what is worth fifty
thousand sesterces into the partnership, the other what is
worth a hundred thousand; unless you are indignant at this,
that you took the fifty thousand out of your strong box, and
Roscius got his hundred thousand out of his learning and
skill. For what was it that Panurgus brought with him
on the stage1? What was the expectation formed of him? why
was there such zeal for him, such partiality to him ? Because
he was the pupil of Roscius. They who loved the one,
favoured the other; they who admired the one, approved of
the other; lastly, all who had heard the name of the one,
thought the other well-trained and accomplished. And this
is the way with the common people ; they estimate few things
by the real truth, many things by prejudice. Very few ob
served what he knew, but every one asked where he had been
taught; they thought that nothing poor or bad could be pro
duced by him. If he had come from Statilius, even if he had
surpassed Roscius in skill, no one would have been able to sea
it. For just as no one supposes that a good son can be bora,
to a worthless father, so no one would suppose that a good
comedian could be formed by a very bad actor ; but because
he came from Roscius, he appeared to know more than he-
really did know.
i)S CICEROS ORATIONS.
XI. And this lately did actually happen in the case of Eros
the comedian, for he, after he was driven off the stage, not
merely by hisses, but even by reproaches, took refuge, as at
an altar, in the house, and instruction, and patronage, and
name of Roscius. Therefore, in a very short time he who had
not been even one of the lowest class of actors, came to be
reckoned among the very first comedians. What was it that
raised him ? This man's commendation alone ; who not only
took this Panurgus home that he might have the name of a
pupil of Roscius, but who also instructed him with the greatest
pains and energy and patience. For the more skilful and in
genious any one is, the more vehement and laborious is he in
teaching his art ; for that which he himself caught quickly, he
is tortured by seeing slowly comprehended by another. My
speech has extended itself to some length, in order that you
may thoroughly understand the conditions of this partnership.
What then followed1? A man of Tarquinii, Quintus Flavius
by name, slew this Panurgus, the common slave of Roscius
and Fannius, and you appointed me as the advocate to con
duct the action about that business. The cause having been
commenced, and an action being appointed according to the
formula, " for injury and loss inflicted," you brought it to a
conclusion with Flavius, without my privity. Was it for the
half share, or for the entire partnership 1 I will speak plainly.
Was it for myself, or for myself and for yourself 1 Was it for
myself alone 1 I could do so according to the precedent set
by many people ; it is lawful to do so ; many men have legally
done so ; I have done you no injury in that matter. Do you
demand what is due to you ? Exact it, and carry it off. Let
every one have and follow up his portion of his right. " But
you managed your affair very well." " Do you too manage
yours well." " You get your half share valued at a high price."
"Do you too get yours valued at a high price." " You get a
hundred thousand sesterces," — if indeed that be true. "Then
do you also get a hundred thousand sesterces."
XII. But you may easily, both in belief and in speaking of
it, have exaggerated the terms on which Roscius concluded
his business; in fact and reality you will find them moderate
and unimportant. For he got a farm at a time when the
prices of farms were very low, — a farm which had not a house
on it, and was not well cultivated in any respect, which is
FOR Q. ROSCIUS THE ACTOR. 99
•worth much more now than it was. And no wonder, for at
that time, on account of the calamities of the republic, every
one's possessions were uncertain ; now, by the kindness of the
immortal gods, the fortunes of every one are well assured:
then it was an uncultivated farm, without a house; now it is
beautifully cultivated, with an excellent villa on it. But since
by nature you are so malevolent, I will never relieve you from
that vexation and that anxiety. Eoscius managed his busi
ness well; he got a most fertile farm. What is that to you?
Do you settle your half of the matter anyhow you please.
He then changes his plan of attack, and endeavours to invent
a story which he cannot prove. " You," says he, " arranged the
whole matter, and not your share of it only." The whole cause
then is brought to this point, — whether Roscius came to a
settlement with Flavius for his own share, or for the whole
partnership ; for I confess that, if Roscius touched anything
on their joint account, he ought to pay it to the partnership.
Did he settle the quarrel of the partnership, and not merely
his own, when he received this farm from Flavius 1 Tf so, why
did he not give security to Flavius, that no one else should
make any demand on him ? He who settles his own demand
only, leaves to the rest their right of action unimpaired; he
who acts for his partners, gives security that none of them
shall afterwards make any demand. Why did it not occur to
Flavius to take this precaution for himself? Was he, forsooth,
not aware that Panurgus belonged to a partnership ? He knew
that. Was he not aware that Fannius was Roscius' partner ?
Thoroughly ; for he himself had a law-suit commenced with
him. Why then does he settle this action, and not exact an
agreement that no one shall make any further demand on
him ? Why does he lose the farm, and yet get no release
from this action ? Why does he act in so inexperienced a
manner, as neither to bind Roscius by any stipulation, nor on
the other hand to get a release from Fannius' action ? This
first argument, drawn both from the rules of civil rights, and
from the customs prevailing with respect to such security, is
a most important and powerful one, which I would press at
greater length, if I had not other more undeniable and mani
fest proofs in the cause.
XIII. And that you may not say I have promised this on
insufficient grounds, I will call you — you, I say, Fannius — from
100 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
your seat as a witness against yourself. — What is your charge ?
That Roscius settled with Flavius on behalf of the partner
ship. — When 1 Four years ago. — What is my defence ? That
Roscius settled with Flavius for his share in the property.
You yourself, three years ago, made a new engagement with
Roscius. — What 1 Recite that stipulation plainly. — Attend, I
beg you, 0 Piso — I am compelling Fannius against his will,
and though he is shuffling off in every direction, to give evi
dence against himself. For what are the words of this new
agreement 1 " Whatever I receive from Flavius, I undertake
to pay one half of to Roscius." These are your words, 0 Fan
nius. What can you get from Flavius, if Flavius owes you
nothing 1 Moreover, why does he now enter into a mutual
engagement about a sum which he has already exacted some
time ago ? But what can Flavius be going to give you, if he
has already paid Roscius everything that he owed ? Why is
this new mutual arrangement interposed in so old an affair, in a
matter so entirely settled, in a partnership which has been dis
solved ? Who is the drawer up of this agreement 1 who is the
witness 1 who is the arbitrator ? who ? You, 0 Piso : for
you begged Quintus Roscius to give Fannius fifteen thousand
sesterces, for his care, for his labour, for having been his agent,
and for having given security, on this condition, that, if he get
anything from Flavius, he should give half of that sum to
Roscius. Does not that agreement seem to show you with
sufficient clearness that Roscius settled the affair on his own
behalf alone ? But perhaps this also may occur to you, that
Fannius did in requital promise Roscius half of whatever he
might get from Flavius, but that he got nothing at all. What
has that to do with it 1 You ought to regard not the result
of the demand, but the beginning of the mutual agreement.
And it does not follow, if he did not choose to prosecute his
demand, that he did not for all that, as far as it depended on
him, show his opinion that Roscius had only settled his own
claim, and not the claim of the partnership. What more ?
Suppose I make it evident, that after the whole settlement
come to by Roscius, after this fresh mutual agreement entered
into by Fannius, Fannius also recovered a hundred thousand
sesterces from Flavius, for the loss of Panurgus 1 Will he
after that still dare to sport with the character of that most
excellent man, Quint1 is Roscius ?
FOR Q. ROSCIUS THE ACTOR. 101
XIV. I asked a little before, — what was very material to
the business, — on what account Flavius, when (as they say) he
was settling the whole claim, did neither take security from
Eoscius, nor obtain a release from all demands from Fannius ?
But now I ask how it was that, when he had settled the whole
affair with Eoscius, he paid also a hundred thousand sesterces
to Fannius on his separate accoiint ? (a thing still more strange
and incredible.) I should like to know, 0 Saturius, what
answer are you preparing to give to this 1 Whether you are
going to say that Fannius never got a hundred thousand ses
terces from Flavius at all, or that he got them for some
other claim," and on some other account 1 If you say it was
on some other account, what dealings had you ever had with
him 1 None. Had you obtained any verdict against him ?
No. I am wasting time to no purpose. He never, he says,
got a hundred thousand sesterces from Flavius at all, neither
on account of Panurgus, nor of any one else. If I prove that,
after this recent agreement with Eoscius, you did get a hundred
thousand sesterces from Flavius, what have you to allege why
you should not leave the court defeated with disgrace 1 By
what witness then shall I make this plain ? This affair, as I
imagine, came to trial. Certainly. Who was the plaintiff?
Fannius. Who the defendant 1 Flavius. Who was the judge ?
Cluvius. Of all these men I must produce one as witness who
can say that the money was paid. Who of these is the most
authoritative witness 1 Beyond all controversy, he who was
approved of as judge by the sentence of every one. Which
of the three then will you look to me for as a witness 1 The
plaintiff? That is Fannius; he will never give evidence against
himself. The defendant 1 That is Flavius. He has been,
dead some time. The judge 1 That is Cluvius. What does
he say ] That Flavius did pay a hundred thousand sesterces
to Fanuius on account of Panurgus. And if you look at the
rank of Cluvius, he is a Eoman knight ; if at his life, he is a
most illustrious man ; if at your own opinion of him, you
chose him as judge ; if to his truth, he has said what he
both could know, and ought to know. Deny now, deny, if
you can, that credit ought to be given to a Eoman knight, to
an honest man, to your own judge. He looks round ; he
fumes ; he denies that we are going to recite the testimony of
Cluvius. We will recite it ; you are mistaken, you are con-
102 .CICERO'S ORATIONS.
soling yourself with a slight and empty hope. Recite the
testimony of Titus Manilius and Caius Luscius Ocrea, two
senators, most accomplished men, who heard it from Cluvius.
(The secretary reads the evidence of Manilius and Luscius.)
What do you say now — that we are not to believe Luscius and
Manilius, or that we are not to believe Cluvius ? I will, speak
more plainly and openly.
XV. Did Luscius and Manilius hear nothing from Cluvius
about the hundred thousand sesterces 1 or did Cluvius say
what was false to Luscius and Manilius 1 On this point I am
of a calm and easy mind, and I am not particularly anxious
as to which way you answer. For the cause of Roscius is for
tified by the strongest and most solemn evidence of most
excellent men. If you have taken time enough to consider
to which you will refuse belief on their oath, answer me. Do
you say that one must not believe Manilius and Luscius ? Say
it. Dare to say it. Such a saying suits your obstinacy, your
arrogance, your whole life. What ! Are you waiting till I
say presently of Luscius and Manilius that they are as to rank
senators ; as to age, old ; as to their nature, pious and reli
gious ; as to their property, rich and wealthy ! I will not da
so1; I will not, on pretence of giving these men the credit due
to a life passed with the greatest strictness, put myself in so
bad a light as to venture to panegyrize men so much older
and nobler than myself, whose characters stand in no need of
my praise. My youth is in more need of their favourable
opinion than their strict old age is of my commendation. But
you, 0 Piso, must deliberate and consider for a long time
whether you will rather believe Chaerea, though not on his oath,
and in his own cause, or Manilius and Luscius on their oaths, in
a cause in which they have no interest. The remaining alter
native is for him to contend that Cluvius told a falsehood to
Luscius and Manilius. And, if he does that, how great is his
impudence ! Will he throw discredit on that man as a wit
ness whom he approved of as a judge ? Will he say that you
ought not to trust that man whom he has trusted himself?
Will he disparage the credit of that man as a witness to the
judge, when on account of his opinion of his good faith and
scrupulousness as a judge, he brought witnesses before him ?
When I produce that man as a witness, will he dare to find
fault with him, when if I were to bring him as a judge even, ha
FOR Q. ROSCIUS THE ACTOR. 103
would be bound not to decline him 1 Oh, but, says he, he was
not on his oath when he said that to Luscius and Mauilius.
Would you believe him, if he said it on his oath?
XVI. But what is the difference between a perjurer and a
liar ? He who is in the habit of lying, is in the habit of per
juring himself. The man whom I can induce to tell a lie, I
shall easily be able to prevail on to take a false oath. For he
who has once departed from truth, is easily led on, with no
greater scruples to perjury than to a lie. For who is in
fluenced by just a mention of the gods in the way of depre
cating their anger, and not by the influence of conscience ?
Because the same punishment which is appointed by the
immortal gods for a perjurer, is appointed also for a liar. For
the immortal gods are accustomed to be indignant and angry,
not on account of the form of words in which an oath is con
tained, but on account of the treachery and malice by which
a plot is laid to deceive any one. But I, on the contrary,
argue in this "way. The authority of Cluvius would be less if
he were speaking on his oath, than it is now when he is not
speaking on his oath. For then, perhaps, he might seem to
bad men over eager in being a witness in a cause in which he
had been judge. But now he must appear to all his enemies
most upright and most wise, inasmuch as he only tells his
intimate friends what he knows. Say now, if you can, if the
business, if the cause permits you to, that Cluvius has spoken
falsely. Has Cluvius spoken falsely ? Truth itself lays its
hand upon me, and compels me to stop, and dwell 011 this
point for a short time. Whence was all this lie drawn, and
where was it forged ? Roscius, forsooth, is a deep and crafty
man. He began to think of this from the first. Since, said he
to himself, Fannius claims fifty thousand sesterces from me, I
will ask Caius Cluvius, a Roman knight, a most accomplished
man, to tell a lie for my sake ; to say that a settlement was
made which was not made ; that a hundred thousand sesterces
were given by Flavius to Fannius, which were not given.
This is the first idea of a wicked mind, of a miserable disposi
tion, of a man of no sense. What came next 1 After he had
thoroughly made up his mind, he came to Cluvius. What
sort of a man was he 1 an insignificant man 1 No, a most
influential one. A fickle man 1 A most consistent one. An
intimate friend of his? A perfect stranger. After he had
104 CICERO'S ORATIOXS.
saluted him, he began to ask him, in gentle and elegant lan
guage to be sure, — " Tell a lie for my sake, tell some excellent
men, your own intimate friends who are here with you, that
Flavius settled with Fannius about Panurgus, though in truth
he did not ; tell them that he paid a hundred thousand
sesterces, though in reality he did not pay a penny." What
answer did he give 1 " Oh, indeed, I will willingly and eagerly
tell lies for your sake ; and if at any time you wish me to
perjure myself in order to make a little profit, know that I
am quite ready ; you need not have taken so much trouble as
to come to me yourself ; you could have arranged such a trifle
as this by a messenger."
XVII. Oh, the faith of gods and men ! Would Roscius
ever have asked this of Cluvius, even if he had had a hundred
millions of sesterces at stake on the issue of the trial ? Or
would Cluvius have granted it to Roscius at his request, even
if he had been to be a sharer in the whole booty 1 I scarcely,
by the gods, think that you, 0 Fannius, would dare to make
this request to Ballio, or to any one like him ; and that you
would be able to succeed in a matter not only false, but in its
nature incredible. For I say nothing about Roscius and
Cluvius being excellent men. 1 imagine them for this occa
sion to be worthless. Roscius, then, suborned Cluvius as a
false witness. Why did he do it so late 1 Why did he do so
when the second payment was to be made, not when the first
was? for already he had paid fifty thousand sesterces.
Secondly ; if Cluvius was, by this time, persuaded to tell lies,
why did he say that a hundred thousand sesterces had been
given to Fannius by Flavius, rather than three hundred
thousand ; when, according to the mutual agreement, a half-
share of it belonged to Roscius. By this time you see, 0 Caius
Piso, that Roscius had made his demand for himself alone, and
had made no demand for the partnership. When Saturius
perceives that this is proved, he does not dare to resist and
struggle against the truth. He finds another subterfuge of
dishonesty and treachery in the same track. " I admit," says
he, " that Roscius demanded his own share from Flavius ; I
admit that he left Fannius's right to make a similar demand
entire and unimpaired ; but I contend that what he got for
himself became the common property of the partnership" —
than which nothing more tricky or more scandalous can be
FOE Q. ROSCIUS THE ACTOR. 105
said. For I ask whether Roscius had the power to demand
his share from the partnership, or not ? If he could not, how
did he get it 1 If he could, how was it that he did not demand
it for himself? For that which is demanded for one's self, is
certainly not exacted for another. Is it so ? If he had made
a demand of what belonged to the entire partnership, all
would equally have shared what then came in. Now, when
he demanded what was a part of his own share, did he not
demand for himself alone what he got 1
XVIII. What is the difference between him who goes to law
for himself, and him who is assigned as agent for another ?
He who commences an action for himself, makes his demand
for himself alone. No one can prefer a claim for another
except him who is constituted his agent. Is it not so 1 If
he had been your agent, you would get your own, because he
had gained the action. But he preferred this claim in his own
name ; so what he got he got for himself, and not for you.
But if any one can make a claim on behalf of another, who is
not appointed his agent, I ask why then, when Panurgus was
slain, and an action was commenced against Fannius on the
plea of injury sustained by the loss, you were made the agent
of Roscius for that action ? especially when, according to what
you now say, whatever claim you made for yourself you made
for him ; whatever recompense you exacted for yourself, would
belong to the partnership. But if nothing would have come
to Roscius which yoii had got from Flavius, unless he had
appointed you agent for his action, so nothing ought to come
to you which Roscius has exacted for his share, since he was
not appointed your agent. For what answer can you make
to this case, 0 Fannius 1 When Roscius settled with Flavius
for his own share, did he leave you your right of action, or
not 1 If he did not leave it you, how was it that you after
wards exacted a hundred thousand serterces from him 1 If he
did leave it, why do you claim from him what you ought to
demand and follow up yourself? For partnership is veiy like
inheritance, and, as it were, its twin sister. As a partner has
a share in a partnership, so an heir has a share in an inherit
ance. As an heir prefers a claim for himself alone, and not
for his co-heirs, so a partner prefers a claim for himself alone,
and not for his partners. And as each prefers a claim for his
own share, so he makes payments for his share alone ; the
106 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
heir, out of the share which he has received of the inheritance,
the partner, out of that property with which he entered into
the partnership. As Roscius could have executed a release to
Flavius in his own name, so as to prevent you from preferring
any claim ; so, as he only exacted his own share, and left you
your right to prefer a claim unimpaired, he ought not to share
what he got with you — unless, indeed, you, by a perversion of
all justice, are able to rob him of what is his, though you are
not able to extort your own rights from another. Saturius
persists in his opinion, that whatever a partner claims for
himself becomes the property of the partnership. But if that
be true, how great (plague take it !) was the folly of Eoscius,
who, by the advice and influence of lawyers, made a mutual
agreement with Fannius, very carefully, that he should pay
him half of whatever he got from Flavius ; if indeed, without
any security or mutual agreement, nevertheless, Fannius owed
it to the partnership ; that is to say, to Roscius.
[The rest of this speech is lost.]
AGAINST Q. C.ECILID8. 107
THE SPEECH AGAINST QUINTUS C^CILIUS.
THE ARGUMENT.
The provinces of the quaestors being distributed to them by lot, the
province of Sicily fell to Cicero ; Sextus Peducaeus being the praetor.
In his discharge of the duties of his office he very much ingratiated
himself with the Sicilians, and at his departure he assured them of
his assistance in whatever business they might have at Eome. Three
years after his return from Sicily he was elected to the aedileship,
being now in his thirty-seventh year, the earliest age at which a man
could be sedile. Before his entrance into this office he undertook
the prosecution of Caius Verres, late praetor of Sicily, who was accused
of having treated the Sicilians with the greatest rapacity and tyranny.
All the cities of Sicily concurred in this prosecution except Syracuse
and Messana, as Verres had kept on good terms with them through
fear of their riches and influence. The other towns all by a joint
petition to Cicero entreated him to take the management of the
prosecution, and he consented ; Verres was supported by the Scipios,
by the Metelli, and Hortensius. As soon as Cicero had agreed to
undertake the management of the business, Quintus Caecilius Niger
came forth, a Sicilian by birth, who had been quaestor to Verres, and
(being in reality the tool of Verres, and making this demand in order
to stifle the prosecution) demanded that the management of it should
be entrusted to him ; partly on the ground that he was a Sicilian, partly
because he was, as he stated, a personal enemy of Verres ; also he
alleged, that having been his quaestor in Sicily, he knew better than
Cicero could know the crimes which Verres really had committed.
Cicero replies to this with many reasons why the conduct of the
prosecution should be committed to him, especially because he did
not volunteer to take it up, but is urged by a sense of duty, being-
begged to do so by all the Sicilians ; and also because he is in every
respect well able to conduct it, from his acquaintance with the country
and with the Sicilians.
There is some question why this speech is called Divinatio, and dif
ferent reasons have been alleged for it; some saying that it is
because it refers to what is to be done, not to what has been done :
others, that it is so called because no witnesses and no documents are
produced, and the judges, having to decide on the arguments of the
speakers alone, are forced to guess their way. Cicero carried his
point, and the prosecution was entrusted to him.
I. IF any one of you, 0 judges, or of those who are present
here, marvels perhaps at me, that I, who have for so many years
been occupied in public causes and trials in such a manner
108 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
that I have defended many men but have prosecuted no one,
should now on a sudden change my usual purpose, and descend
to act as accuser; — he, if he becomes acquainted with the
cause and reason of my pi-esent intention, will both approve
of what I am doing, and will think, I am sure, that no one
ought to be preferred to me as manager of this cause. As I
had been quaestor in Sicily, 0 judges, and had departed from,
that province so as to leave among all the Sicilians a pleasing
and lasting recollection of my qusestorship and of my name,
it happened, that while they thought their chief protection
lay in many of their ancient patrons, they thought there was
also some support for their fortunes secured in me, who,
being now plundered and harassed, have all frequently come
to me by the public authority, entreating me to undertake
the cause and the defence of all their fortunes. They say
that I repeatedly promised and repeatedly assured them, that,
if any time should arrive when they wanted anything of me,
I would not be wanting to their service. They said that the
time had come for me to defend not only the advantages
they enjoyed, but even the life and safety of the whole pro
vince ; that they had now not even any gods in their cities to
whom they could flee, because Caius Verres had carried off
their most sacred images from the very holiest temples. That
whatever luxury could accomplish in the way of vice, cruelty
in the way of punishment, avanco in the way of plunder, or
arrogance in the way of insult, had all been borne by them
for the last three years, while this one man was preetor. That
they begged and entreated that I would not reject them as
suppliants, who, while I was in safety, ought to be suppliants
to no one.
II. I was vexed and distressed, 0 judges, at being brought
into such a strait, as to be forced either to let those men's
hopes deceive them who had entreated succour and assistance
of me, or else, when I had from my very earliest youth de
voted myself entirely to defending men, to be now, under the
compulsion of the occasion and of my duty, transferred to the
part of an accuser. I told them that they had an advocate
in Quintus Csecilius, who had been quaestor in the same pro
vince after I was quaestor there. But the very thing which I
thought would have been an assistance to me in getting rid of
this difficulty, was above all things a hindrance to me ; for
AGAINST Q. C^ECILIUS. 109
they would have much more easily excused me if they had
not known him, or if he had never been among them as
qusestor. I was induced, 0 judges, by the considerations of
duty, good faith, and pity ; by the example of many good
men ; by the ancient customs and habits of our ancestors, to
think that I ought to take upon myself this burden of labour
and duty, not for any purpose of my own, but in the time of
need to my friends. In which business, however, this fact
consoles me, 0 judges, that this pleading of mine which seems
to be an accusation is not to be considered an accusation, but
rather a defence. For I am defending many men, many
cities, the whole province of Sicily. So that, if one person is
to be accused by me, I still almost appear to remain firm in
my original purpose, and not entirely to have given up defend
ing and assisting men. But if I had this cause so deserving,
so illustrious, and so important ; if either the Sicilians had
not demanded this of me, or I had not had such an intimate
connexion with the Sicilians ; and if .1 were to profess that
what I am doing I am doing for the sake of the republic, in
order that a man endowed with unprecedented covetousness,
audacity, and wickedness, — whose thefts and crimes we have
known to be most enormous and most infamous, not in Sicily
alone, but in Achaia, in Asia, in Cilicia, in Pamphylia, and
even at Rome, before the eyes of all men, — should be brought
to trial by my instrumentality, still, who would there be who
could find fault with my act or my intention 1
III. What is there, in the name of gods and men ! by
which I can at the present moment confer a greater benefit
on the republic ? What is there which either ought to be
more pleasing to the Roman people, or which can be more
desirable in the eyes of the allies and of foreign nations, or
more adapted to secure the safety and fortunes of all men 1
The provinces depopulated, harassed, and utterly overturned;
the allies and tributaries of the Roman people afflicted and
miserable, are seeking now not for any hope of safety, but for
comfort in their destruction. They who wish the administra
tion of justice still to remain in the hands of the senatorial
body, complain that they cannot procure proper accusers ;
those who are able to act as accusers, complain of the want
of impartiality in the decisions. In the meantime the Roman
people, although it suffers under many disadvantages and
110 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
difficulties, yet desires nothing in the republic so much as the
restoration of the ancient authority and importance to the
courts of law. It is from a regret at the state of our courts
of law that the restoration of the power of the tribunes1 is so
eagerly demanded again. It is in consequence of the uncer
tainty of the courts of law, that another class2 is demanded
to determine law-suits ; owing to the crimes and infamy of
the judges, even the office of censor, which formerly was used
to be accounted too severe by the people, is now again de
manded, and has become popular and praiseworthy. In a
time of such licentiousness on the part of the wicked, of daily
complaint on the part of the Roman people, of dishonour in
the courts of law, of unpopularity of the whole senate, as I
thought that this was the only remedy for these numerous
evils, for men who were both capable and upright to under
take the cause of the republic and the laws, I confess that I,
for the sake of promoting the universal safety, devoted myself
to upholding that part of the republic which was in the
greatest danger. Now that I have shown the motives by
which I was influenced to undertake the cause, I must neces
sarily speak of our contention, that, in appointing an accuser,
you may have some certain line of conduct to follow. I
understand the matter thus, 0 judges: — when any man is
accused of extortion, if there be a contest between any parties
as to who may best be entrusted with the prosecution, these
two points ought to be regarded most especially; first, whom
they, to whom the injury is said to have been done, wish most
to be their counsel ; and secondly, whom he, who is accused
of having done those injuries, would least wish to be so.
IV. In this cause, 0 judges, although I think both these
1 Sylla in his reform of the constitution on the early aristocratic
principles, left to the tribunes only the jus auxiliandi, but deprived
them of the right of making legislative or other proposals either to the
senate 'or to the comitia without having previously obtained the sanction
of the senate. But this arrangement did not last, for Pompey restored
them to their former rights. Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 990, v. Tribunis. •
2 Caius Gracchus had procured a law to be passed, that the Eoman
knights should be the judges; and they acted as such for forty years.
After his victory over Marius, Sylla made a law that the judges should
be selected from the senate. This arrangement had lasted ten years with
the effect mentioned here by Cicero ; and Aurelius Cotta was at this
time proposing a law that the judges should be taken from the senators,
knights, and tribuni cerarii, jointly.
AGAINST Q. CJICILIUS. Ill
points plain, yet I will dilate upon each, and first on that
•which ought to have the greatest influence with you, that is
to say, on the inclination of those to whom the injuries have ,
been done ; of those for whose sake this trial for extortion .;
has been instituted. Caius Verres is said for three years to
have depopulated the province of Sicily, to have desolated the
cities of the Sicilians, to have made the houses empty, to have
plundered the temples. The whole nation of the Sicilians is
present, and complains of this. They fly for protection to
my good faith, which they have proved and long known ;
they entreat assistance for themselves from you and from the
laws of the Roman people through my instrumentality; they
desire me to be their defender in these their calamities ; they
desire me to be the avenger of their injuries, the advocate of
their rights, and the pleader of their whole cause. Will you,
0 Quintus Csecilius, say this, that I have not approached the
cause at the request of the Sicilians 1 or that the desire of
those most excellent and most faithful allies ought not to be
of great influence with these judges ? If you dare to say that
which Caius Verres, whose enemy you are pretending to be,
wishes especially to be believed, — that the Sicilians did not
make this request to me, — you will in the first place be sup
porting the cause of your enemy, against whom it is con
sidered that no vague presumption, but that an actual decision
has been come to, in the fact that has become notorious, that
all the Sicilians have begged for me as their advocate against
his injuries. If you, his enemy, deny that this is the case,
which he himself to whom the fact is most injurious does not
dare to deny, take care lest you seem to carry on your enmity
in too friendly a manner. In the second place, there are
witnesses, the most illustrious men of our states, all of whom
it is not necessary that I should name ; those who are present
1 will appeal to ; while, if I were speaking falsely, they are
the men whom I should least wish to be witnesses of my im
pudence. He, who is one of the assessors on this trial, Caius
Marcellus, knows it ; he, whom I see here present, Cnseus
Lentulus Marcellinus, knows it ; on whose good faith and pro
tection the Sicilians principally depend, because the whole of
that province is inalienably connected with the name of the
Marcelli. These men know that this request was not only
made to me, but that it was made so frequently and with such
112 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
earnestness, that I had no alternative except either to under
take the cause, or to repudiate the duty of friendship. But
why do I cite these men as witnesses, as if the matter were
doubtful or unknown? Most noble men are present here
from the whole province, who being present, beg and entreat
you, 0 judges, not to let your judgment differ from their
judgment in selecting an advocate for their cause. Deputa
tions from every city in the whole of Sicily, except two,1 are
present ; and if deputations from those two were present also,
two of the very most serious of the crimes would be lessened
in which these cities are implicated with Caius Verres. But
why have they entreated this protection from me above all
men ? If it were doubtful whether they had entreated it from
me or not, I could tell why they had entreated it ; but now,
when it is so evident that you can see it with your eyes, I know
not why it should be any injury to me to have it imputed to
me that I was selected above all men. But I do not arrogate
any such thing to myself, and I not only do not say it, but I
do not wish even to leave any one to believe that I have been
preferred to every possible advocate. That is not the fact
but a consideration of the opportunities of each individual,
and of his health, and of his aptitude for conducting this
cause, has been taken into account. My desire and senti
ments on this matter have always been these, that I would
rather that any one of those who are fit for it should under
take it than I ; but I had rather that I should undertake it
myself than that no one should.
V. The next thing is, since it is evident that the Sicilians
have demanded this of me, for us to inquire whether it is right
that this fact should have any influence on you and on your
judgments ; whether the allies of the Roman people, your
suppliants, ought to have any weight with you in a matter
of extortion committed on themselves. And why need I say
much on such a point as this? as if there were any doubt
that the whole law about extortion was established for the
sake of the allies. For when citizens have been robbed of
1 Cicero means Syracuse and Me^sana, which did not join in the
outcry against Verres, because Verres had resided at Syracuse, and had
enriched that city with some of the plunder which he had taken from
other cities ; and he had treated Messana in the same way, which place
he had made the repository of his plunder till he could export it to Italy.
AGAINST Q. OECILIUS. 113
their money, it is usually sought to bo recovered by civil
action and by a private suit. This is a law affecting the
allies, — this is a right of foreign nations. They have this
fortress somewhat less strongly fortified now than it was
formerly, but still if there be any hope left which can console
the minds of the allies, it is all placed in this law. And
strict guardians of this law have long since been required, not
only by the Roman people, but by the most distant nations.
Who then is there who can deny that it is right that the trial
should be conducted according to the wish of those men for
: whose sake the law has been established ? All Sicily, if it
could speak with one voice, would say this : — "All the gold, all
the silver, all the ornaments which were in my cities, in my
private houses, or in my temples, — all the rights which I had
in any single thing by the kindness of the senate and Roman
people, — all that you, 0 Caius Verres, have taken away
and robbed me of, on which account I demand of you a
hundred million of sesterces according to the law. If the
whole province, as I have said, could speak, it would say this;
and as it could not speak, it has of its own accord chosen an
advocate to urge these points, whom it has thought suitable.
In a matter of this sort, will any one be found so impudent
as to dare to approach or to aspire to the conduct of the
cause of others against the will of those very people whoso
affairs are involved in it ?
VI. If, 0 Quintus Csecilius, the Sicilians were to say this
to you, — we do not know you — we know not who you are,
we never saw you before ; allow us to defend our fortunes
through the instrumentality of that man whose good faith is
known to us j would they not be saying what would appear
reasonable to every one ? But now they say this — that they
know both the men, that they wish one of them to be the
defender of their cause, that they are wholly unwilling that
the other should be. Even if they were silent they would say
plainly enough why they are unwilling. But they are not
silent ; and yet will you offer yourself, when they are most
unwilling to accept you ? Will you still persist in speaking
in the cause of others? Will you still defend those men
who would rather be deserted by every one than defended by
you ? Will you still promise your assistance to those men who
do neither believe that you wish to give it for their sake, nor
i
114 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
that, if you did wish it, you could do it ? Why do you
endeavour to take away from them by force the little hope
for the remainder of their fortunes which they still retain,
built upon the impartiality of the law and of this tribunal ?
Why do you interpose yourself expressly against the will
of those whom the law directs to be especially consulted ?
Why do you now openly attempt to ruin the whole fortunes
of those of whom you did not deserve very well when in the
province ? Why do you take away from them, not only the
power of prosecuting their rights, but even of bewailing their
calamities ? If you are their counsel, whom do you expect to
come forward of those men who are now striving, not to
punish some one else by your means, but to avenge them
selves on you yourself, through the instrumentality of some
one or other ?
VII. But this is a well-established fact, that the Sicilians
especially desire to have me for their counsel ; the other
point, no doubt, is less clear, — namely, by whom Verres would
least like to be prosecuted ! Did any one ever strive so
openly for any honour, or so earnestly for his own safety, as
that man and his friends have striven to prevent this prose
cution from being entrusted to me ? There are many
qualities which Verres believes to be in me, and which he
knows, 0 Quintus Coecilius, do not exist in you : and what
qualities each of us have I will mention presently ; at this
moment I will only say this, which you must silently agree
to, that there is no quality in me which he can despise, and
none in you which he can fear. Therefore, that great
defender1 and friend of his votes for you, and opposes me ; he
openly solicits the judges to have you preferred to me ; and
he says that he does this honestly, without any envy of me,
and without any dislike to me. " For," says he, " I am now
asking for that which I usually obtain when I strive for
it earnestly. I am not asking to have the defendant ac
quitted ; but I am asking this, that he may be accused by
the one man rather than by the other. Grant me this ; grant
that which is easy to grant, and honourable, and by no means
invidious ; and when you have granted that, you will, without
any risk to yourself, and without any discredit, have granted
1 Cicero alludes to Hortensius; indeed, the name of Hortensius
ippeavs in the text in some editions.
AGAINST Q. CJECILIUS. 115
that he shall be acquitted in whose cause I am labouring."
He says also, in order that some alarm may be mingled with
the exertion of his influence, that there are certain men on the
bench to whom he wishes their tablets to be shown, and that
that is very easy, for that they do not give their votes sepa
rately, but that all vote together ; and that a tablet,1 covered
with the proper wax, and not with that illegal wax which has
given so much scandal, is given to every one. And he does not
give himself all this trouble so much for the sake of Verres, as
because he disapproves of the whole affair. For he sees that,
if the power of prosecuting is taken away from the high-born
boys whom he has hitherto played with, and from the public
informers, whom he has always despised and thought in
significant (not without good reason), and to be transferred tc
fearless men of well-proved constancy, he will no longer be
able to domineer over the courts of law as he pleases.
VIII. I now beforehand give this man notice, that if you
determine that this cause shall be conducted by me, his whole
plan of defence must be altered, and must be altered in such
a manner as to be earned on in a more honest and honourable
way than he likes; that he must imitate those most illustrious
men whom he himself has seen, Lucius Crassus and Marcus An-
tonius j who thought that they had no right to bring anything
to the trials and causes in which their friends were concerned,
except good faith and ability. He shall have no room for
thinking, if I conduct the case, that the tribunal can be cor
rupted without great danger to many. In this trial I think
that the cause of the Sicilian nation, — that the cause of the
whole Roman people, is undertaken by me ; so that I have
not to crush one worthless man alone, which is what the
1 " The judges were provided with three tabellse, one of which was
marked with A, i.e. absolvo, I acquit ; the second with C, i.e. condemno,
I condemn ; and the third with N L, i.e. non liquet. It is not clear to
me, why Cicero (pro Mil. 6) calls the first litera salutaris, and the second
litera tristis. It would seem that in some trials the tabellae were marked
with the letters L, libero, and D, damno, respectively." Smith's Diet.
Ant. v. Tdbella. In trials like this between Cicero and Ccecilius, it is
probable that the two tabellas had the names of the different candidates
inscribed on them. The circumstance alluded to in the text was that
a short time before this Terentius Varro had been accused of extortion,
and defended by Hortensius, who bribed the judges, and then in order
to be sure that they voted as they had promised, caused tablets to be
given lo them smeared with coloured wax, so that he could easily recog
nise their votes in the balloting urn.
116 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
Sicilians have requested, but to extinguish and extirpate every
sort of iniquity, which is what the Roman people has been
long demanding. And how far I labour in this cause, or
what I may be able to effect, I would rather leave to the
expectations of others, than set forth in my own oration. But
as for you, 0 Csecilius, what can you do 1 On what occasion,
or in what affair, have you, I will not say given proof to others
of your powers, but even made trial of yourself to yourself ?
Has it never occurred to you how important a business it is
to uphold a public cause ? to lay bare the whole life of
another ? and to bring it palpably before, not only the minds
of the judges, but before the very eyes and sight of all men ; to
defend the safety of the allies, the interests of the provinces, the
authority of the laws, and the dignity of the judgment-seat ?
IX. Judge by me, since this is the first opportunity of
learning it that you have ever had, how many qualities must
meet in that man who is the accuser of another : and if you
recognise any one of these in yourself, I will, of my own
accord, yield up to you that which you are desirous of. First
of all, he must have a singular integrity and innocence. For
there is nothing which is less tolerable than for him to
demand an account of his life from another who cannot give
an account of his own. Here I will not say any more of
yourself. This one thing, I think, all may observe, that
up to this time you had no opportunity of becoming known to
any people except to the Sicilians; and that the Sicilians say
this, that even though they are exasperated against the same
man, whose enemy you say that you are, still, if you are the
advocate, they will not appear on the trial. Why they refuse
to, you will not hear from me. Allow these judges to suspect
what it is inevitable that they must. The Sicilians, indeed,
being a race of men over-acute, and too much inclined to
suspiciousness, suspect that you do not wish to bring docu
ments from Sicily against Verres ; but, as both his praetor-
ship and your quaestorship are recorded in the same documents,
they suspect that you wish to remove ' them out of Sicily. In
the second place, an accuser must be trustworthy and veracious.
Even if I were to think that you were desirous of being so, I
1 The Latin is departure and asportare, the former meaning to
remove from one place to another, the latter to carry away ; "but it seems
by implication here, to carry them away with the intention of suppressing
them." — Long.
AGAIX3T Q. C2ECILIUS. 117
easily see that you are not able to be so. Nor do I speak
of those things, which, if I "were to mention, you would not
be able to invalidate, namely that you, before you departed
from Sicily, had become reconciled to Verres ; that Potamo,
your secretary and intimate friend, was retained by Verres in
the province when you left it ; that Marcus Csecilius, your
brother, a most exemplary and accomplished young man,
is not only not present here and does not stand by you while
prosecuting your alleged injuries, but that he is with Verres,
and is living on terms of the closest friendship and intimacy
with him. These, and other things belonging to you, are
many signs of a false accuser ; but these I do not now avail
myself of. I say this, that you, if you were to wish it ever
so much, still cannot be a faithful accuser. For I see that
there are many charges in which you are so implicated with
Verres, that in accusing him, you would not dare to touch
upon them.
X. All Sicily complains that Caius Verres, when he had
ordered corn to be brought into his granary for him, and when
a bushel of wheat was two sesterces, demanded of the farmers
twelve sesterces a bushel for wheat. ' It was a great crime, an
immense sum, an impudent theft, an intolerable injustice. I
must inevitably convict him of this charge ; what will you do,
0 Caecilius 1 Will you pass over this serious accusation, or
"will you bring it forward 1 If you bring it forward, will you
charge that as a crime against another, which you did your
self at the same time in the same province 1 Will you dare
so to accuse another, that you cannot avoid at the same time
condemning yourself? If you omit. the charge, what sort ol
a prosecution will yours be, which from fear of danger to
yourself, is afraid not only to create a suspicion of a most
certain and enormous crime, but even to make the least
mention of it 1 Corn was bought, on the authority of a decree
of the senate, of the Sicilians while Verres was prsetor; for
which corn all the money was not paid. This is a grave
1 The praetor had the power to make an annual demand on the
fawners for corn for the state, and the quaastor was to pay a fair market
price for it ; but in some cases the praetor allowed or compelled the
farmer to pay a composition in money, instead of delivering corn, and
Verres, when the market price of wheat was only two sesterces a bushel,
compelled the farmers to pay twelve sesterces a bushel by way of com
position.
118 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
charge against Verres ; a grave one if I plead the cause, but,
if you are the prosecutor, no charge at all. For you were
the quaestor, you had the handling of the public money ; and,
even if the praetor desired it ever so much, yet it was to a
great extent in your power to prevent anything be^ng taken
from it. Of this crime, therefore, if you are the prosecutor,
no mention will be made. And so during the whole trial
nothing will be said of his most enormous and most notorious
thefts and injuries. Believe me, 0 Csecilius, he who is con
nected with the criminal in a partnership of iniquity, cannot
really defend his associates while accusing him. The contrac
tors exacted money from the cities instead of corn. Well !
was this never done except in the prsetorship of Verres 1 I
do not say that, but it was done while Csecilius was quaestor.
What then will you do1? Will you urge against this man as a
charge, what you both could and ought to have prevented
from being done 1 or will you leave out the whole of it ?
Verres, then, at his trial will absolutely never hear at all of
those things, which, when he was doing them, he did not know
how he should be able to defend.
XI. And I am mentioning those matters which lie on the
surface. There are other acts of plunder more secret, which
he, in order, I suppose, to check the courage and delay the
attack of Csecilius, has very kindly participated in with his
quscstor. You know that information of these matters has
been given to me ; and if I were to choose to mention them,
all men would easily perceive that there was not only a per
fect harmony of will subsisting between you both, but that
you did not pursue even, your plunder separately. So that if
you demand to be allowed to give information of the crimes
which Verres has committed in conjunction with you, I have
110 objection, if it is allowed by the law. But if we are speak
ing of conducting the prosecution, that you must yield to
those who are hindered by no crimes of their own from being
able to prove the offences of another. And see how much
difference there will be between my accusation and yours. I
intend to charge Verres with all the crimes that you com
mitted, though he had no share in them, because he did not
prevent you from committing them, though he had the
supreme power; you, on the other hand, will not allege against
him even the crimes which he committed himself, lest you
AGAINST Q. (LEC1L1US. 119
should be found to bo in any particular connected with him.
What shall I say of these other points, 0 Csecilius 1 Do these
things appear contemptible to you, without which no cause,
especially no cause of such importance, can by any means be
supported 1 Have you any talent for pleading ? any practice
in speaking 1 Have you paid any attention or acquired any
acquaintance with the forum, the courts, and the laws ? I
know in what a rocky and difficult path I am now treading ;
for as all arrogance is odious, so a conceit of one's abilities and
eloquence is by far the most disagreeable of all. On which
account I say nothing of my own abilities ; for I have none
worth speaking of, and if I had I would not speak of them.
For either the opinion formed of me is quite sufficient for me,
such as it is; or if it be too low an opinion to please me, still
I cannot make it higher by talking about them.
XII. I will just, 0 Csecilius, say this much familiarly to
you about yourself, forgetting for a moment this rivalry and
contest of ours. Consider again and again what your own
sentiments are, and recollect yourself ; and consider who you
are, and what you are able to effect. Do you think that, when
you have taken upon yourself the cause of the allies, and the
fortunes of the province, and the rights of the Roman people,
and the dignity of the judgment-seat and of the law, in a dis
cussion of the most important and serious matters, you ore
able to support so many affairs and those so weighty and so
various with your voice, your memory, your counsel, and your
ability ? Do you think that you are able to distinguish in
separate charges, and in a well-arranged speech, all that Caius
Verres has done in his qusestorship, and in his lieutenancy,
and in his prsetorship, at Rome, or in Italy, or in Achaia, or
in Asia Minor, or in Pamphylia, as the actions themselves are
divided by place and time 1 Do you think that you are able
(and this is especially necessary against a defendant of this
sort) to cause the things which he has done licentiously, or
wickedly, or tyrannically, to appear just as bitter and scan
dalous to those who hear of them, as they did appear to those
who felt them 1 Those things which I am speaking of are
very important, believe me. Do not you despise this either ;
everything must be related, and demonstrated, and explained ;
the cause must be not merely stated, but it must also be gravely
and copiously dilated on. You must cause, if you wish really
120 CICERO'S OEATIOXS.
to do and to effect anything, men not only to hear you, but
also to hear you willingly and eagerly. And if nature had
been bountiful to you in such qualities, and if from your
childhood you had studied the best arts and systems, and
•worked hard at them ; — if you had learnt Greek literature at
Athens, not at Lilybaeum, and Latin literature at Rome, and
not in Sicily; still it would be a great undertaking to approach
so important a cause, and one about which there is such great
expectation, and having approached it, to follow it up with the
requisite diligence; to have all the particulars always fresh
in your memory; to discuss it properly in your speech, and
to support it adequately with your voice and your facul
ties. Perhaps you may say, What then ? Are you then en
dowed with all these qualifications? — I wish indeed that I
were ; but at all events I have laboured with great industry
from my very childhood to attain them. And if I, on account
of the importance and difficulty of such a study have not been
able to attain them, who have done nothing else all my life,
how far do you think that you must be distant from these
qualities, which you have not only never thought of before,
but which even now, when you are entering on a stage that
requires them all, you can form no proper idea of, either as to
their nature or as to their importance ?
XIII. I, who as all men know, am so much concerned in
the forum and the courts of justice, that there is no one of
the same age, or very few, who have defended more causes,
and who spend all my time which can be spared from the
business of my friends in these studies and labours, in order
that I may be more prepared for forensic practice and more
ready at it, yet, (may the gods be favourable to me as I am
saying what is true !) whenever the thought occurs to me of
the day when, the defendant having been summoned, I have
to speak, I am not only agitated in my mind, but a shudder
runs over my whole body. Even now I am surveying in my
mind and thoughts what party spirit will be shown by men ;
what throngs of men will meet ; how great an expectation
the importance of the trial will excite ; how great a multitude
of hearers the infamy of Caius Verres will collect; how great
an audience for my speech his wickedness will draw together,
And when I think of these things, even now I am afraid as to
what I shall be able to say suitable to the hatred men bear
AGAINST Q. C^.CILIUS. 121
him, who are inimical and hostile to him, and worthy of the
expectation which all men will form, and of the importance
of the case. Do you fear nothing, do you think of nothing,
are you anxious about nothing of all this ? Or if from some
old speech you have been able to learn, " I entreat the mighty
and beneficent Jupiter," or, "I wish it were possible, 0 judges,"
or something of the sort, do you think that you shall come
before the court in an admirable state of preparation 1 And,
even if no one were to answer you, yet you would not, as I
think, be able to state and prove even the cause itself. Do
you now never give it a thought, that you will have a contest
with a most eloquent man, and one in a perfect state of pre
paration for speaking, with whom you will at one time have
to argue, and at another time to strive and contend against
him with all your might 1- Whose abilities indeed I praise
greatly, but not so as to be afraid of them, and think highly
of, thinking however at the same time that I am more easily
to be pleased by them than cajoled by them.
XIV. He will never put me down by his acuteness ; he will
never put me out of countenance by any artifice; he will
never attempt to upset and dispirit me by displays of his
genius. I know all the modes of attack and every system of
speaking the man has. We have often been employed on the
same, often on opposite sides. Ingenious as he is, he will
plead against me as if he were aware that his own ability is to
some extent put on its trial. But as for you, 0 Csecilius,
I think that I see already how he will play with you, how he
will bandy you about ; how often he will give you power and
option of choosing which alternative you please, — whether a
thing were done or not, whether a thing be true or false ; and
whichever side you take will be contrary to your interest.
What a heat you will be in, what bewilderment ! what dark
ness, 0 ye immortal gods ! will overwhelm the man, free from
malice as he is. What will you do when he begins to divide
the different counts of your accusation, and to arrange on his
fingers each separate division of the cause 1 What will you
do when he begins to deal with each argument, to disentangle
it, to get rid of it 1 You yourself in truth will begin to be
afraid lest you have brought an innocent man into danger.
What will you do when he begins to pity his client, to com
plain, and to take off some of his unpopularity from him and
122 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
transfer it to you 1 to speak of the close connexion necessarily
subsisting between the quaestor and the prsetor ? of the cus
tom of the ancients ? of the holy nature of the connexion
between those to whom the same province was by lot appointed?
Will you be able to encounter the odium such a speech
•will excite against you 1 Think a moment ; consider again
and again. For there seems to me to be danger of his over
whelming you not with words only, but of his blunting the
edge of your genius by the mere gestures and motions of his
body, and so distracting you and leading you away from every
previous thoiight and purpose. And I see that the trial of
this will be immediate ; for if you are able to-day to answer
me and these things which I am saying ; if you even depart
one word from that book which some elocution-master or
other has given you, made up of other men's speeches; I shall
think that you are able to speak, and that you are not unequal
to that trial also, and that you will be able to do justice to the
cause and to the duty you undertake. But if in this pre
liminary skirmish with me you turn out nothing, what can
we suppose you will be in the contest itself against a most
active adversary?
XV. Be it so ; he is nothing himself, he has no ability ;
but he comes prepared with well-trained and eloquent sup
porters. And this too is something, though it is not enough ;
for in all things he who is the chief person to act, ought to
be the most accomplished and the best prepared. But I see
that Lucius Appuleius is the next counsel on the list, a mere
beginner, not as to his age indeed, but as to his practice and
training in forensic contests. Next to him he has, as I think,
Allienus ; he indeed does belong to the bar, but however, I
never took any particular notice of what he could do in speak
ing; in raising an outcry, indeed, I see that he is very vigorous
and practised. In this man all your hopes are placed ; he, if
you are appointed prosecutor, will sustain the whole trial.
But even he will not put forth his whole strength in speaking,
but will consult your credit and reputation ; and will abstain
from putting forth the whole power of eloquence which he
himself possesses, in order that you may still appear of some
importance. As we see is done by the Greek pleaders ; that
he to whom the second or third part belongs, though he may
be able to speak somewhat better than his leader, often re-
AGAINST Q. C.ECIL1US. 123
strains himself a good deal, in order that the chief may
appear to the greatest possible advantage, so will Allienus
act.; he will be subservient to you, he will pander to your in
terest, he will put forth somewhat less strength than he might.
Now consider this, 0 judges, what sort of accusers we shall
have in this most important trial ; when Allienus himself will
somewhat abstain from displaying all his abilities, if ho has
any, and Csecilius will only be able to think himself of any
use, because Allienus is not so vigorous as he might be. and
voluntarily allows him the chief share in the display. What
fourth counsel he is to have with him I do not know, unless
it be one of that crowd of losers of time who have entreated
to be allowed an inferior part in this prosecution, whoever he
might be to whom you gave the lead. And you are to appear
in just this state of preparation, that you have to make friends
of these men who are utter strangers to you, for the purpose
of obtaining their assistance. But I will not do these men so
much honour as to answer what they have said in any regular
order, or to give a separate answer to each ; but since I have
come to mention them not intentionally, but by chance, I will
briefly, as I pass, satisfy them all in a few words.
XVI. Do I seem to you to be in such exceeding want of
friends that I must have an assistant given me, chosen not
out of the men whom I have brought down to court with me,
but out of the people at large 1 And are you suffering under
such a dearth of defendants, that you endeavour to filch this
cause from me rather than look for some defendants of your
own class at the pillar of Msem'us ? l Appoint me, says he,
to watch Tullius. What ? How many watchers shall I have
need of, if I once allow you to meddle with my bag ? as you
will have to be watched not only to prevent your betraying
anything, but to prevent yoTir removing anything. But for
the whole matter of that watchman I will answer you thus in
the briefest manner possible ; that these honest judges will
1 Maenius had sold his house to Cato and Valerius Flaccus when they
were censors, and they had built the Porcian Piazza on the spot, but he
had reserved for himself one pillar for him and his heirs to have a view
of the gladiatorial contests from it ; and near this column the triumviri-
capitates held their court, before whose tribunal it was chiefly the lower
sort of criminals who were brought, and as a general rule the advocates
who practised in these courts were of a lower class than those who con
fined themselves to more respectable clients, and to civil actions.
I Ii4 CICERO S ORATIONS. '
never permit any assistant to force himself against my consent
into so important a cause, when it has been undertaken by
me, and is entrusted to me. In truth, my integrity rejects an
overlooker ; my diligence is afraid of a spy. But to return
to you, 0 Csecilius, you see how many qualities are wanting
to you ; how many belong to you which a guilty defendant
would wish to belong to his prosecutor, you are well aware.
What can be said to this ? For I do not ask what you will
say yourself. I see that it is not you who will answer me, but
this book which your prompter has in his hand ; who, if he
be inclined to prompt you rightly, will advise you to depart
from this place and not to answer me one word. For what
can you say ? That which you are constantly repeating, that
Verres has done you an injury ? I have no doubt he has, for
it would not be probable, when he was doing injuries to all
the Sicilians, that you alone should be so important in his
eyes that he should take care of your interests. But the rest
of the Sicilians have found an avenger of their injuries ; you,
while you are endeavouring to exact vengeance for your inju
ries by your own means, (which you will not be able to effect,)
are acting in a way to leave the injuries of all the rest un
punished and unavenged. And you do not see that it ought
not alone to be considered who is a proper person to exact
vengeance, but also who is a person capable of doing so, — that
if there be a man in whom both these qualifications exist, he
is the best man ; but if a man has only one of them, then the
question usually asked is, not what he is inclined to do, but
what he is able to do. And if you think that the office of
prosecutor ought to be entrusted to him above all other men,
to whom Caius Verres has done the greatest injury, which do
you think the judges ought to be most indignant at, — at your
having been injured by him, or at the whole province of
Sicily having been harassed and ruined by him ? I think you
must grant that this both is the worst thing of the two, and
that it ought to be considered the worst by every one. Allow,
therefore, that the province ought to be preferred to you as
the prosecutor. For the province is prosecuting when he is
pleading the cause whom the province has adopted as the
defender of her rights, the avenger of her injuries, and the
pleader of the whole cause.
XVII. Oh, but Caius Verres has done you such an injury
AGAINST Q. C^CILIUS. 125
as might afflict the minds of all the rest of the Sicilians also,
though the grievance was felt only by another. Nothing of
the sort. For I think it is material also to this argument tc
consider what sort of injury is alleged and brought forward as
the cause of your enmity. Allow me to relate it. For he
indeed, unless he is wholly destitute of sense, will never say
what it is. There is a woman of the name of Agonis, a Lily-
bsean, a freedwoman l of Venus Erycina ; a woman who before
this man was queestor was notoriously well off and rich. From
her some prefect of Antouius's2 carried off some musical slaves
whom he said he wished to use in his fleet. Then she, as is
the custom in Sicily for all the slaves of Venus, and all those
who have procured their emancipation from her, in order to
hinder the designs of the prefect, by the scruples which the
name of Venus would raise, said that she and all her property
belonged to Venus. When this was reported to Csecilius,
that most excellent and upright man, he ordered Agonis to
be summoned before him ; he immediately orders a trial to
ascertain " if it appeared that she had said that she and all
her property belonged to Venus." The recuperators3 decide
all that was necessary, and indeed there was no doubt at all
that she had said so. He sends men to take possession of the
woman's property. He adjudges her herself to be again a slave
of Venus ; then he sells her property and confiscates the
money. So while Agonis wishes to keep a few slaves under
the name and religious protection of Venus, she loses all her
fortunes and her own liberty by the wrong doing of that man.
After that, Verres comes to Lilybseum ; he takes cognisance
of the affair ; he disapproves of the act ; he compels his
quaestor to pay back and restore to its owner all the money
which he had confiscated, having been received for the pro
perty of Agonis. He is here, and you may well admire it, no
longer Verres, but Quintus Mucius.4 For what could he do
1 See Professor Long's note on this passage.
2 Antonius bad been appointed as naval commander-in-chief along
the whole coast; in which capacity it was that he made his unauthorized
attack on Crete, which gare rise to the war in which the island wast
reduced by Metellus Creticus.
3 " In many cases a single judex was appointed, in others several were
appointed, and they seem sometimes to have been called recuperatores,
as opposed to the single judex."— Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 529, v. Judex.
4 " Quintus Mucius Scsevola is spoken of here, who in the year
A.U.C. G60 was sent as proconsul to Asia, where he governed with such
12G i CICERO'S ORATIONS.
more delicate to obtain a high character among men ? what
more just to relieve the distress of the woman 1 what more
severe to repress the licentiousness of his quaestor? All this
appears to me most exceedingly praiseworthy. But at the
very next step, in a moment, as if he had drank of some
Circsean cup, having been a man, he becomes Verres again ;
he returns to himself and to his old habits. For of that
money he appropriated a great share to himself, and restored
to the woman only as much as he chose.
XVIII. Here now if you say that you were offended with
Verres, I will grant you that and allow it ; if you complain
that he did you any injury, I will defend him and deny it.
Secondly, I say that of the injury which was done to you no
one of us ought to be a more severe avenger than yea your
self, to whom it is said to have been done. If yon afterwards
became reconciled to him, if you were often at his house, if
he after that supped with you, do you prefer to be considered
as acting with treachery or by collusion with him ? I
see that one of these alternatives is inevitable, but in this
matter I will have no contention with you to prevent your
adopting which you please. What shall I say if even the
pretext of that injury which was done to you by him no
longer remains 1 What have you then to say why you should
be preferred, I will not say to me, but to any one ? except
that which I hear you intend to say, that you were his
quzestor : which indeed would be an important allegation if
you were contending with me as to which of us ought to be
the most friendly to him ; but in a contention as to which is
to take up a quarrel against him, it is ridiculous to suppose
that an intimate connexion with him can be a just reason for
bringing him into danger. In truth, if you had received ever
so many injuries from your prsetor, still you would deserve
greater credit by bearing them than by revenging them ; but
when nothing in his life was ever done more rightly than that
which you call an injury, shall these judges determine that
this cause, which they would not even tolerate in any one else,
shall appear in your case to be a reasonable one to justify the
violation of your ancient connexion? When even if you had
•'ustice and strictness that the senate afterwards by formal decree
reminded magistrates about to depart for that province of his example."
— Hottoman.
AGAINai' Q. CiECILIUS. 127
received the greatest injury from him, still, since you have
been his quaestor, you cannot accuse him and remain blame
less yourself. But if no injury has been done you at all, you
cannot accuse him without wickedness ; and as it is very
uncertain whether any injury has been done you, do you
think that there is any one of these men who would not
prefer that you should depart without incurring blame rather
than after having committed wickedness 1
XIX. And just think how great is the ' difference between
my opinion and yours. You, though you are in every respect
inferior to me, still think that you ought to be preferred to
me for this one reason, because you were his quaestor. I think,
that if you were my superior in eveiy other qualification, still
that for this one cause alone you ought to be rejected as the
prosecutor. For this is the principle which has been handed
down to us from our ancestors, that a praetor ought to be in
the place of a parent to his quaestor ; that no more reasonable
nor more important cause of intimate friendship can be ima
gined than a connexion arising from drawing the same lot,
having the same province, and being associated in the dis
charge of the same public duty and office. Wherefore, even
if you could accuse him without violating strict right, still, as
he had been in the place of a parent to you, you could not do
so without violating every principle of piety. But as you have
not received any injury, and would yet be creating danger for
your praetor, you must admit that you are endeavouring to
wage an unjust and impious war against him. In truth, your
qusestorship is an argument of so strong a nature, that you
would have to take a great deal of pains to find an excuse for
accusing him to whom you had acted as quaestor, and can
never be a reason why you should claim on that account to
have the office of prosecuting him entrusted to you above all
men. Nor indeed, did any one who had acted as quaestor to
another, ever contest the point of being allowed to accuse him.
without being rejected. And therefore, neither was permis
sion given to Lucius Philo to bring forward an accusation
against Caius Servilius, nor to Marcus Aurelius Scaurus to
prosecute Lucius Flaccus, nor to Cnseus Pompeius to accuse
Titus Albucius ; not one of whom was refused this permis
sion because of any personal unworthiness, but in order that
the desire to violate such an intimate connexion might not be
128 CICERO'S OBATIONS.
sanctioned by the authority of the judges. And that great
man Cnaeus Pompeius contended about that matter with
Caius Julius, just as you are contending with me. For
he had been the qusestor of Albucius, just as you were of
Verres : Julius had on his side this reason for conducting the
prosecution, that, just as we have now been entreated by the
Sicilians, so he had then been entreated by the Sardinians, to
espouse their cause. And this argument has always had the
greatest influence ; this has always been the most honourable
cause for acting as accuser, that by so doing one is bringing
enmity on oneself in behalf of allies, for the sake of the safety
of a province, for the advantage of foreign nations — that one is
for their sakes incurring danger, and spending much care and
anxiety and labour.
XX. Even if the cause of those men who wish to revenge
their own injuries be ever so strong, in which matter they are
only obeying their own feelings of indignation, not consulting
the advantage of the republic : how much more honourable
is that cause, which is not only reasonable, but which ought
to be acceptable to all, — that a man, without having received
any private injury to himself, should be influenced by the
sufferings and injuries of the allies and friends of the Roman
people ! When lately that most brave and upright man
Lucius Piso demanded to be allowed to prefer an accusation
against Publius Gabinius, and when Quintus Csecilius claimed
the same permission in opposition to Piso, and said that in so
doing he was following up an old quarrel which he had long
had with Gabinius ; it was not only the authority and dignity
of Piso which had great weight, but also the superior justice
of his cause, because the Achseans had adopted him as their
patron. In truth, when the very law itself about extortion is
the protectress of the allies and friends of the Roman people,
it is an iniquitous thing that he should not, above all others,
be thought the fittest advocate of the law and conductor of
the trial, whom the allies wish, above all men, to be the pleader
of their cause, and the defender of their fortunes. Or ought
not that which is the more honourable to mention, to appear
also far the most reasonable to approve of1? Which then is the
more splendid, which is the more honourable allegation — " I
have prosecuted this man to whom I had acted as qusestor,
' with whom the lot cast for the provinces, and the custom of
AGAINST Q. C^CILIUS. 129
our ancestors, and the judgment of gods and men had con
nected me," or, " I have prosecuted this man at the request
of the allies and friends of the Roman people , I have been
selected by the whole province to defend its rights and for
tunes ?" Can any one doubt that it is more honourable to act
as prosecutor in behalf of those men among whom you have
been quaestor, than as prosecutor of him whose quaestor you
have been ? The most illustrious men of our state, in the
best of times, used to think this most honourable and glorious
for them to ward off injuries from their hereditaiy friends,
and from their clients, and from foreign nations which were
either friends or subjects of the Roman people, and to defend
their fortunes. We learn from tradition that Marcus Cato,
that wise man, that most illustrious and most prudent man,
brought upon himself great enmity from many men, on ac
count of the injuries of the Spaniards among whom he had
been when consul. We know that lately Cnseus Domitius
prosecuted Marcus Silanus on account of the injuries of one
man, Egritomarus, his father's friend and comrade.
XXI. Nor indeed has anything ever had more influence
over the minds of guilty men than this principle of our ances
tors, now re-adopted and brought back among us after a long
interval, namely, that the complaints of the allies should be
brought to a man who is not very inactive, and their advocacy
undertaken by him who appeared able to defend their fortunes
with integrity and diligence. Men are afraid of this ; they
endeavour to prevent this ; they are disquieted at such a
principle having ever been adopted, and after it has been
adopted at its now being resuscitated and brought into play
again. They think that, if this custom begins gradually to
creep on and advance, the laws will be put in execution, and
actions will be conducted by honourable and fearless men,
and not by unskilful youths, or informers of this sort. Of
which custom and principle our fathers and ancestors did not
repent when Publius Lentulus, he who was chief of the Senate,
prosecuted Marcus Aquillius, having Caius Rutilius Rufus
backing the accusation ; or when Publius Africanus, a man
most eminent for valour, for good fortune, for renown, and for
exploits, after he had been twice consul and had been censor,
brought Lucius Cotta to trial. Then the name of the Roman
people was rightly held in high honour ; rightly was the
E
130 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
authority of this empire and the majesty of the state con
sidered illustrious. Nobody marvelled in the case of that
great man Africanus, as they now pretend to marvel with
respect to mo, a man endowed with but moderate influ
ence and moderate talents, just because they are annoyed at
me ; " What can he be meaning 1 does he want to be con
sidered a prosecutor who hitherto has been accustomed to
defend people ? and especially now at the age when he is seek
ing the sedileship ? " But I think it becomes not rny age only,
but even a much greater age, and I think it an action consis
tent Avith the highest dignity to accuse the wicked, and to
defend the miserable and distressed. And in truth, either this
is a remedy for a republic diseased and in an almost des
perate condition, and for tribunals corrupted and contami
nated by the vices and' baseness of a few, for men of the
greatest possible honour and uprightness and modesty to
undertake to uphold the stability of the laws, and the
authority of the courts of justice ; or else, if this is of no
advantage, no medicine whatever will ever be found for such
terrible and numerous evils as these. There is no greater
safety for a republic, than for those who accuse another to be
no less alarmed for their own credit, and honour, and reputa
tion, than they who are accused are for their lives and for
tunes. And therefore, those men have always conducted pro
secutions with the greatest care and with the greatest pains,
who have considered that they themselves had their reputa
tions at stake.
XXII. You, therefore, 0 judges, ought to come to this deci
sion, that Quintus Csecilius, of whom no one has ever had any
opinion, and from whom even in this very trial nothing could
be expected — who takes no trouble either to preserve a repu
tation previously acquired, or to give grounds for hope of him
self in future times — will not be likely to conduct this cause
with too much severity, with too much accuracy, or with too
much diligence. For he has nothing which he can lose by
disappointing public expectation ; even if he were to come off
ever so shamefully, or ever so infamously, he will lose no
credit which he at present enjoys. From us the Roman
people has many hostages which we must labour with all
our might and by every possible means to preserve unin
jured, to defend, to keep in safety, and to redeem ; it has
I. AGAINST VERRES. 131
honour which we are desirous of; it has hope, which we
constantly keep before our eyes ; it has reputation, acquired
with much sweat and labour day and night ; so that if we
prove our duty and industry in this cause, we may be able to
preserve all those things which I have mentioned safe and un
impaired by the favour of the Roman people ; but if we trip and
stumble ever so little, we may at one moment lose the whole
of those things which have been collected one by one and by
slow degrees. On which account it is your business, 0 judges,
to select him who you think can most easily sustain this
great cause and trial with integrity, with diligence, with wis
dom, and with authority. If you prefer Quintus Csecilius to
me, I shall not think that I am surpassed in dignity ; but take
you care that the Roman people do not think that a prosecu
tion as honest, as severe, as diligent as this would have been
in my hands, was neither pleasing to yourselves nor to your
body.
THE FIRST ORATION AGAINST VERRES.
THE ARGUMENT.
After the last oration it was decided that Cicero was to conduct the
prosecution against Verres; accordingly, a hundred and ten days were
allowed him to prepare the evidence, with which object he went him
self to Sicily to examine witnesses, and to collect facts in support of
his charges, taking with him his cousin Lucius Cicero as an assistant,
and in this journey, contrary to all precedent, he bore his own
expenses, resolving to put the island to no charge on his account. At
Syracuse the praetor, Metcllus, endeavoured to obstruct him in his
inquiries, but the magistrates received him with great respect, and,
declaring to him that all that they had previously done in favour of
Verres (for they had erected a gilt statue of him, and had sent a
testimonial of his good conduct and kind government of them to
Rome) had been extorted from them by intrigue and terror, they
delivered into his hands authentic accounts of many injuries their city
had received from Verres, and they revoked by a formal decree the
public praises which they had given him. Mcssana, however, con
tinued firm in its engagements to Verres, and denied Cicero all the
honours to which he was entitled. When he finished his investiga
tions, apprehending that he might be waylaid by the contrivance of
Verres, he returned by sea to Rome, where he found intrigues carry
ing on to protract the affair as much as possible, in order to delay
132 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
the decision of it till the year following, when Hortensius and
Metellus were to be the consuls, and the brother of Metellus was to
be prsetor, by whose united authority the prosecution might be
stifled : and it was now so late in the year that there was not time to
bring the trial to an end, if the ordinary course of proceeding was
adhered to. But Cicero, determined to bring on the decision while
Glabrio continued praetor, abandoned his idea of making a long speech,
and of taking up time in dilating on and enforcing the different counts
of the indictment, and resolved to do nothi»g more than produce his
witnesses, and offer them to examination ; and this novel method of
conducting the case, together with the powerful evidence produced,
which he could not invalidate, so confounded Hortensius, that he could
find nothing to say in his client's defence, who in despair went of his
own accord into banishment.
The object of Cicero in this oration is to show that it is out of sheer
necessity that he does this, and that he is driven to such a proceeding
by the intrigues of the opposite party. He therefore exhorts the
judges not to be intimidated or cajoled into a dishonest decision, and
threatens the opposite party with punishment for endeavouring to
corrupt the judges.
I. That which was above all things to be desired, 0 judges,
and which above all things was calculated to have the greatest
influence towards allaying the unpopularity of your order, and
putting an end to the discredit into which your judicial deci-
eions have fallen, appears to have been thrown in your way,
and given to you not by any human contrivance, but almost
by the interposition of the gods, at a most important crisis of
the republic. For an opinion has now become established,
pernicious to us, and pernicious to the republic, which has
been the common talk of every one, not only at Rome, but
among foreign natrons also, — that in the courts of law as they
exist at present, no wealthy man, however guilty he may be,
can possibly be convicted. Now at this time of peril to your
order and to your tribunals, when men are ready to attempt
by harangues, and by the proposal of new laws, to increase
the existing unpopularity of the senate, Caius Verres is
brought to trial as a criminal, a man condemned in the
opinion of every one by his life and actions, but acquitted by
the enormousness of his wealth according to his own hope and
boast. I, 0 judges, have undertaken this cause as prosecutor
with the greatest good wishes and expectation on the part of
the Roman people, not in order to increase the unpopularity
of the senate, but to relieve it from the discredit which I
share with it. For I have brought before you a man, by
I. AGAINST VERRES. 133
acting justly in whose case you have an opportunity of re
trieving the lost credit of your judicial proceedings, of
regaining your credit with the Roman people, and of giving
satisfaction to foreign nations ; a man, the embezzler of the
public funds, the petty tyrant of Asia and Pamphylia, the
robber who deprived the city of its rights, the disgrace and
ruin of the province of Sicily. And if you come to a decision
about this man with severity and a due regard to your oaths,
that authority which ought to remain in you will cling to
you still ; but if that man's vast riches shall break down the
sanctity and honesty of the courts of justice, at least I shall
achieve this, that it shall be plain that it was rather honest
judgment that was wanting to the republic, than a criminal
to the judges, or an accuser to the criminal.
II. I, indeed, that I may confess to you the truth about
myself, 0 judges, though many snares were laid for me by
Caius Verres, both by land and sea, which I partly avoided
by my own vigilance, and partly warded off by the zeal and
kindness of my friends, yet I never seemed to be incurring so
much danger, and I never was in such a state of great appre
hension, as I am now in this very court of law. Nor does the
expectation which people have formed of my conduct of this
prosecution, nor this concourse of so vast a multitude as is
here assembled, influence me (though indeed I am greatly
agitated by these circumstances) so much as his nefarious
plots which he is endeavouring to lay at one and the same
time against me, against you, against Marcus Glabrio the
praetor, and against the allies, against foreign nations, against
the senate, and even against the very name of senator ; whose
favourite saying it is that they have got to fear who have
stolen only as much as is enough for themselves, but that he
has stolen so much that it may easily be plenty for many ;
that nothing is so holy that it cannot be corrupted, or so
strongly fortified that it cannot be stormed by money. But
if he were as secret in acting as he is audacious in attempting,
perhaps in some particular he might some time or other have
escaped our notice. But it happens very fortunately that to
his incredible audacity there is joined a most unexampled
folly. For as he was unconcealed in committing his robberies
of money, so in his hope of corrupting the judges he has made
his intentions and endeavours visible to every one. He saya
134 CICERO S ORATIONS.
that once only in bis life has he felt fear, at the time when he
was first impeached as a criminal by me ; because he was only
lately arrived from his province, and was branded with
unpopularity and infamy, not modern but ancient and of long
standing ; and, besides that, the time was unlucky, being very
ill-suited for corrupting the judges. Therefore, when I had
demanded a very short time to prosecute my inquiries in
Sicily, he found a man to ask for two days less to make inves
tigations in Achaia ;' not with any real intention of doing the
same Avith his diligence and industry, that I have accom
plished by my labour, and daily and nightly investigations.
For the Achasan inquisitor never even arrived at Bruudu-
Bium. I in fifty days so travelled over the whole of Sicily
that I examined into the records and injuries of all the tribes
and of all private individuals, so that it was easily visible to
every one, that he had been seeking out a man not really for
the purpose of bringing the defendant whom he accused to
trial, but merely to occupy the time which ought to belong
to me.
III. Now that most audacious and most senseless man
thinks this. He is aware that I am come into court so
thoroughly prepared and armed, that I shall fix all his thefts
and crimes not only in your ears, but in the very eyes of all
men. He sees that many senators are witnesses of his auda
city ; he sees that many Roman knights are so too, and many
citizens, and many of the allies besides to whom he has done
unmistakeable injuries. He sees also that very numerous
and very important deputations have come here at the same
time from most friendly cities, armed with the public autho
rity and evidence collected by their states. And though this
is the case, still he thinks so ill of all virtuous men, to such
an extent does he believe the decisions of the senators to be
corrupt and profligate, that he makes a custom of openly
boasting that it was not without reason that he was greedy of
money, since he now finds that there is such protection in
money, and that he has bought (what was the hardest thing
of all) the very time of his trial, in order to be able to buy
everything else more easily; so that, as he could not by any
possibility shirk the force of the accusations altogether, he
might avoid the most violent gusts of the storm. But if ho
1 It is not ccrtainlv known what Cicero refers to here.
I. AGAINST YEKRES. 135
had placed any hope at all, not only in his cause, but in any
honourable defence, or in the eloquence or in the influence of
any one, he would not be so eager in collecting and catching
at all these things ; he would not scorn and despise the sena
torial body to such a degree, as to procure a man to be
selected out of the senate at his will to be made a criminal
of, who should plead his cause1 before him, while he in the
meantime was preparing whatever he had need of. And what
the circumstances are on which he founds his hopes, and what
hopes he builds 011 them, and what he is fixing his mind on,
I see clearly. But how he can have the confidence to think
that he can effect anything with the present praetor, and the
present bench of judges, I cannot conceive. This one thing
I know, which the Roman people perceived too when he
rejected2 the judges, that his hopes were of that nature that
he placed all his expectations of safety in his money ; and
that if this protection were taken from him, he thought
nothing would be any help to him.
IV. In truth, what genius is there so powerful, what faculty
of speaking, what eloquence so mighty, as to be in any parti
cular able to defend the life of that man, convicted as it is of
so many vices and crimes, and long since condemned by the
inclinations and private sentiments of every one. And, to say
nothing of the stains and disgraces of his youth, what other
remarkable event is there in his qusestorship, that first step
to honour, except that Cnseus Carbo was robbed by his quaestor
of the public money? that the consul was plundered and
betrayed 1 his army deserted 1 his province abandoned ? the
holy nature and obligations imposed on him by lot 3 violated 1
— whose lieutenancy was the ruin of all Asia and Pamphylia,
in which provinces he plundered many houses, very many
cities, all the shrines and temples ; when he renewed and
repeated against Cneeus Dolabella his ancient wicked tricks
1 This refers to the same subject as the previous note.
2 "In any given case the litigant parties agreed upon a judex, or
accepted him whom the magistrates proposed ; a, party had the power of
rejecting a proposed judex, though there must have been some limit to
this power." (Cic. Pro Cluent. 43.) Smith, Diet. Ant. v. Judex.
What the limits to this power were, or under what restrictions it waa
exercised, we do not now know.
3 Because the provinces which involved all these obligations were
distributed by lot to the different magistrates.
CICERO S ORATIONS.
when he had been quaestor, and did not only in his danger
desert, but even attack and betray the man to whom he had
been lieutenant, and proquaestor, ' and whom he had brought
into odium by his crimes ; — whose city praetorship was the
destruction of the sacred temples and the public works, and,
as to his legal decisions, was the adjudging and awarding of
property contrary to all established rules and precedents.
But now he has established great and numerous monuments
and proofs of all his vices in the province of Sicily, which he
for three years so harassed and ruined that it can by no pos
sibility be restored to its former condition, and appears scarcely
able to be at all recovered after a long series of years, and a
long succession of virtuous praetors. While this man was
praetor the Sicilians enjoyed neither their own laws, nor the
decrees of our senate, nor the common rights of every nation.
Every one in Sicily has only so much left as either escaped the
notice or was disregarded by the satiety of that most avari
cious and licentious man.
V. No legal decision for three years was given on any
other ground but his will ; no property was so secure to any
man, even if it had descended to him from his father and
grandfather, but he was deprived of it at his command ;
enormous sums of money were exacted from the property of
the cultivators of the soil by a new and nefarious system. The
most faithful of the allies were classed in the number of
enemies. Roman citizens were tortured and put to death
like slaves ; the greatest criminals were acquitted in the courts
of justice through bribery ; the most upright and honourable
men, being prosecuted while absent, were condemned and
banished without being heard in their own defence ; the most
fortified harbours, the greatest and strongest cities, were laid
open to pirates and robbers;2 the sailors and soldiers of the
1 " The proconsul or prcetor who had the administration of a province,
•was attended by a quaestor. This quaestor had undoubtedly to perform
the same offices as those who accompanied the armies into the field. . .
They had also to levy those parts of the public revenue which were not
farmed by the publican! .... In the provinces they had the same juris
diction as the curule aediles at Home .... The relation existing between
a praetor or proconsul and his quaestor was according to ancient custom
regarded as resembling that between a father and his son. When
a quaestor died in his province, the praetor had the right to appoint a
proquscstor in his stead." — Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 814, v. Qucestor.
1 The coast of Sicily being much infested by pirates, it was the
II. AGAINST VERRES.
point to which the Roman people has long been inviting me.
For it thinks -that the decision concerning the rights to free
dom and to,citizenship belong to itself ; and it thinks rightly.
Let that fellow, foi'sooth, break down with his evidence the
intentions of the senators — let him force his way through the
questions of all men — let him make his escape from your
severity ; believe me, he will be held by much tighter chains
in the hands of the Roman people. The Roman people will
give credit to those Roman knights who, when they were pro
duced as witnesses before you originally, said that a Roman
citizen, one who was offering honourable men as his bail, was
crucified by him in their sight. The whole of the thirty-five
tribes will believe a most honourable and accomplished man,
Marcus Annius, who said, that when he was present, a Roman
citizen perished by the hand of the executioner. That most
admirable man Lucius Flavius, a Roman knight, will be lis
tened to by the Roman people, who gave in evidence that his
intimate friend Herennius, a merchant from Africa, though
more than a hundred Roman citizens at Syracuse knew him,
and defended him in tears, was put to death by the execu
tioner. Lucius Suetius, a man endowed with every accom
plishment, speaks to them with an honesty and authority and
conscientious veracity which they must trust ; and he said on
his oath before you that many Roman citizens had been most
cruelly put to death, with every circumstance of violence, in
his stone-quarries. When I am conducting this cause for the
sake of the Roman people from this rostrum, I have no fear
that either any violence can be able to save him from the
votes of the Roman people, or that any labour undertaken by
me in my redileship can be considered more honourable or
more acceptable by the Roman people.
VI. Let, therefore, every one at this trial attempt every
thing. There is no mistake now which any one can make in
this cause, 0 judges, which will not be made at your risk.
My own line of conduct, as it is already known to you in
what is past, is also provided for, and resolved on, in what is
to come. I displayed my zeal for the republic at that time,
when, after a long interval, I reintroduced the old custom,
and at the request of the allies and friends of the Roman
people, who were, however, my own most intimate connexions,
prosecuted a most audacious man. And this action of mine
138 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
seek to oppose the eloquence of any one else to me ; he does
not rely on the popularity, or influence, or authority of any
one. He pretends that he trusts to these things ; but I see
what he is really aiming at ; (and indeed he is not acting with
any concealment.) He sets before me empty titles of nobility,
that is to say the names of arrogant men, who do not hinder
me so much by being noble, as assist me by being notorious ;
— he pretends to rely on their protection ; when he has in
reality been contriving something else this long time. What
hope he now has, and what he is endeavouring to do, I will
now briefly explain to you, 0 judges. But first of all, remark,
I beg you, how the matter has been arranged by him from
the beginning. When he first returned from the province, he
endeavoured to get rid of this prosecution by corrupting the
judges at a great expense ; and this object he continued to
keep in view till the conclusion of the appointment of the
judges. After the judges were appointed, because in drawing
lots for them the fortune of the Roman people had defeated
his hopes, and in the rejecting some my diligence had defeated
his impudence, the whole attempt at bribery was abandoned.
The affair was going on admirably ; lists of your names and
of the whole tribunal were in every one's hands. It did not
seem possible to mark the votes1 of these men with any dis
tinguishing mark or colour or spot of dirt ; and that fellow,
from having been brisk and in high spirits, became on a sudden
so downcast and humbled, that he seemed to be condemned
not only by the Roman people but even by himself. But lo !
all of a sudden, within these few days, since the consular
comitia2 have taken place, he has gone back to his original
plan with more money, and the same plots are now laid
against your reputation and against the fortunes of every one,
by the instrumentality of the same people ; which fact at
first, 0 judges, was pointed out to me by a very slight hint
and indication ; but afterwards, when my suspicions were
once aroused, I arrived at the knowledge of all the most
secret counsels of that party without any mistake.
VII. For as Hortensius the consul elect was being attended
1 This refers to the way in -which Hortensius had once marked the
judges whom he had bribed, as is mentioned in the speech against
Csecilius.
2 The comitia centuriata for the election of consuls for the succeeding
j-ear were held on the 26th of July.
I. AGAINST VERRES. 139
home again from the Campus by a great concourse and
multitude of people, Caius Curio fell in with that multitude
by chance, — a man whom I wish to name by way of honour
rather than of disparagement. I will tell you what, if he
had been unwilling to have it mentioned, he would not have
spoken of in so large an assembly so openly and undis-
guisedly ; which, however, shall be mentioned by me delibe
rately and cautiously, that it may be seen that I pay due
regard to our friendship and to his dignity. He sees Verres
in the crowd by the arch of Fabius ; 1 he speaks to the man,
and with a loud voice congratulates him on his victory. He
does not say a word to Hortensius himself, who had been
made consul, or to his friends and relations who were present
attending on him ; but he stops to speak to this man, em
braces him, and bids him cast off all anxiety. " I give you
notice," said he, " that you have been acquitted by this day's
comitia." And as many most honourable men heard this, it
is immediately reported to me; indeed, every one who saw
me mentioned it to me the first thing. To some it appeared
scandalous, to others ridiculous ; ridiculous to those who
thought that this cause depended on the credibility of the
witnesses, on the importance of the charges, and on the power
of the judges, and not on the consular comitia; scandalous to
those who looked deeper, and who thought that this congratu
lation had reference to the corruption of the judge. In truth,
they argued in this manner — the most honourable men spoke
to one another and to me in this manner — that there were now
manifestly and undeniably no courts of justice at all. The
very criminal who the day before thought that he was already
condemned, is acquitted now that his defender has been made
consul. What are we to think then ? Will it avail nothing
that all Sicily, all the Sicilians, that all the merchants who
have business in that country, that all public and private
documents are now at Rome 1 Nothing, if the consul elect
wills it otherwise. What ! will not the judges be influenced
by the accusation, by the evidence, by the universal opinion
of the Roman people 1 No. Everything will be governed by
the power and authority of one man.
1 This arch had been erected to commemorate the victory obtained by
Fabius over the Allobrogea ; and it was erected in the Via Sacra, as
Cicero mentions in his speech Pro Plancio.
140 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
VIII. I will speak the truth, 0 judges. This thing agitated
me greatly ; for every good man was speaking in this way —
" That fellow will be taken out of your hands ; but we shall
not preserve our judicial authority much longer ; for who,
when Verres is acquitted, will be able to make any objection
to transferring it from us 1 " It was a grievous thing to every
one, and the sudden elation of that profligate man did not
weigh with them as much as that fresh congratulation of a
very honourable one. I wished to dissemble my own vexation
at it ; I wished to conceal my own grief of mind under a cheer
ful countenance, and to bury it in silence. But lo ! on the
very days when the prsetors elected were dividing their duties
by lot, and when it fell to the share of Marcus Metellus to hold
trials concerning extortion, information is given me that that
fellow was receiving such congratulations, that he also sent
men home to announce it to his wife. And this too in truth
displeased me ; and yet I was not quite aware what I had so
much to fear from this allotment of the praetor's duties. But
I ascertained this one thing from trustworthy men from whom
I received all my intelligence ; that many chests full of Sici
lian money had been sent by some senator to a Roman
knight, and that of these about ten chests had been left at
that senator's house, with the statement that they were left
to be used in the comitia when I expected to be elected sedile,
and that men to distribute this money among all the tribes
had been summoned to attend him by night. Of whom one,
who thought himself under the greatest obligations to me,
came to me that same night ; reports to me the speech which
that fellow had addressed to them ; that he had reminded them
how liberally he had treated them formerly when he was can
didate for the prsetorship, and at the last consular and praeto
rian comitia ; and in the second place that he had promised
them immediately whatever money they required, if they
could procure my rejection from the sedileship. That on this
some of them said that they did not dare attempt it ; that
others answered that they did not think it could be managed ;
but that one bold friend was found, a man of the same family
as himself, Quintus Verres, of the Romilian tribe, of the most
perfect school of bribers, the pupil and friend of Verres's
father, who promised that, if five hundred thousand sesterces
were provided, he would manage it ; and that there were some
I. AGAINST VERRES. 141
others who said that they would co-operate with him. And
as this was the case, he warned me beforehand with a friendly
disposition, to take great care.
IX. I was disquieted about many most important matters
at one and the same moment, and with very little time to
deliberate. The comitia were at hand ; and at them I was to
be opposed at immense expenditure of money. This trial was
at hand ; the Sicilian treasurers menaced that matter also. I
was afraid, from apprehension about the comitia, to conduct
the matters relating to the trial with freedom ; and because
of the trial, I was unable to attend with all my heart to my
canvass. Threatening the agents of bribery was out of the
question, because I saw that they were aware that I was ham
pered and fettered by this trial. And at this same moment I
hear that notice has been given to the Sicilians by Hortensius
to come to speak to him at his house ; that the Sicilians be
haved in that matter with a proper sense of their own liberty,
and, when they understood on what account they were sent for,
they would not go. In the meantime my comitia began to be
held ; of which that fellow thought himself the master, as he
had been of all the other comitia this year. He began to run
about, that influential man, with his son, a youth of engaging
and popular manners, among the tribes. The son began
to address and to call on all the friends of his father, that is
to say, all his agents for bribery ; and when this was noticed
and perceived, the Roman people took care with the most
earnest good-will that I should not be deprived of my honour
through the money of that man, whose riches had not been
able to make me violate my good faith. After that I was
released from that great anxiety about my canvass, I began,
with a mind much more unoccupied and much more at ease,
to think of nothing and to do nothing except what related to
this trial. I find, 0 judges, these plans formed and begun to
be put in execution by them, to protract the matter, whatever
steps it might be necessary to take in order to do so, so that
the cause might be pleaded before Marcus Metellus as praetor.
That by doing so they would have these advantages ; firstly,
that Marcus Metellus was most friendly to them ; secondly,
that not only would Hortensius be consul, but Quintus Me
tellus also : and listen while I show you how great a friend
ae is to them. For he gave him a token of his good-will of
142 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
such a sort, that he seemed to be giving it as a return for the
suffrages1 of the tribes which he had secured to him. Did
you think that I would say nothing of such serious matters
as these ? and that, at a crisis of such danger to the republic
and my own character, I would consult anything rather than
my duty and my dignity 1 The other consul elect sent for
the Sicilians ; some came, because Lucius Metcllus was prsetor
in Sicily. To them he speaks in this manner : that he is the
consul ; that one of his brothers has Sicily for his province ;
that the other is to be judge in all prosecutions for extortion;
and that care had been taken in many ways that there should
be no possibility of Verres being injured.
X. I ask you, Metellus, what is corrupting the course of
justice, if this is not, — to seek to frighten witnesses, and
especially Sicilians, timid and oppressed men, not only by
your own private influence, but by their fear of the consul,
and by the power of two praetors ? What would you do for
an innocent man or for a relation, when for the sake of a most
guilty man, entirely unconnected with you, you depart from
your duty and your dignity, and allow what he is constantly
saying to appear true to any one who is not acquainted with
you ? For they said that Verres said, that you had not been
made consul by destiny, as the rest of your family had been,
but by his assistance. Two consuls, therefore, and the judge
are to be such because of his will. We shall not only, says he,
avoid having a man too scrupulous in investigating, too sub-
'servient to the opinion of the people, Marcus Glabrio, but we
shall have this advantage also : — Marcus Csesonius is the
judge, the colleague of our accuser, a man of tried and proved
experience in the decision of actions. It will never do for us
to have such a man as that on the bench, which we are
endeavouring to corrupt by some means or other ; for before,
when he was one of the judges on the tribunal of which
Junius2 was president, he was not only very indignant at that
1 " The order in which the centuries voted was decided by lot, and
that which gave its vote first was called centuria prcerogativa." — Smith,
'Diet. Ant. p. 274, v. Comilia. " We also find the plural prcerogaiivoe,
because they were of two kinds, juniorum and seniorum." — Riddle's
Diet, in v. Prcerogativa.
2 Caesonius was now sedile elect with Cicero. In the prosecution in
stituted by Cluentius against Oppianicus, while Verres was praetor-
urbanus, Oppianicus had tried to ensure his acauittal by bribing
I. AGAINST VERRES. 143
shameful transaction, but he even betrayed and denounced it.
After the first of January we shall not have this man for our
judge, — we shall not have Quintus Manlius and Qumtus
Cornificius, two most severe and upright judges, for judges,
because they will then be tribunes of the people. Publius
Sulpicius, a solemn and upright judge, must enter on his
magistracy on the fifth of November. Marcus Crepereius, of
that renowned equestrian family and of that incorruptible
character ; Lucius Cassius, of a family renowned for its
severity in all things, and especially as judges ; Cnseus
Tremellius, a man of the greatest scrupulousness and dili
gence ; — these three men of ancient strictness of principle are
all military tribunes elect. After the first of January they
will not be able to act as judges. And besides this, we elect
by lot a successor in the room of Marcus Metellus, since he
is to preside over this very trial. And so after the first of
January, the praetor, and almost the whole bench of judges
being changed, we shall elude the terrible threats of the pro
secutor, and the great expectations entertained of this trial,
and manage it according to our own will and pleasure. To
day is the fifth of August. You began to assemble at the
ninth hour. This day they do not even count. There are
ten days between this and the votive games which Cnseus
Pompey is going to celebrate. These games will take up fifteen
days ; then immediately the Roman games will follow.
And so, when nearly forty days have intervened, then at
length they think they shall have to answer what has been
said by us ; and they think that, what with speeches, and
what with excuses, they will easily be able to protract the
cause till the period of the games of Victory. With these the
plebeian games are connected, after which there will be either
no day at all, or veiy few for pleading in. And so, when the
accusation has got stale and cold, the matter will come all
fresh before Marcus Metellus as prsetor. And if I had dis
trusted his good faith, I should not have retained him as
a judge ; but now I have such an opinion of him, that I
would rather this matter was brought to a close while he is
judge than while he is prsetor ; and I would rather entrust to
Stalemis, Ballus, and Gutta, three of the judges ; but Cassonius divulged
the corrupt nature of their motives, procured the conviction of Oppi-
anicus, and the subsequent impeachment and punishment of the judges
who had been bribed.
144 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
him his own tablet while he is on his oath, than the tablets
of others when he is restrained by no such obligation.
XI. Now, 0 judges, I consult you as to what you think I
ought to do. For you will, in truth, without speaking, give
me that advice which I understand that I must inevitably
adopt. If I occupy the time which I legitimately might in
speaking, I shall reap the fruit of my labour, industry, and
diligence ; and by this prosecution I shall make it manifest
that no one in the memory of man appears ever to have
come before a court of justice better prepared, more vigilant,
or with his cause better got up. But while I am getting this
credit for my industry, there is great danger lest the criminal
may escape. What, then, is there which can be done 1 I
think it is neither obscure nor hidden. I will reserve for
another time that fruit of praise which may be derived from a
long uninterrupted speech. At present I must support this
accusation by documentary evidence, by witnesses, by letters
of private individuals and of public bodies, and by various
other kinds of proof. The whole of this contest is between
you and me, 0 Hortensius. I will speak openly. If I
thought that you were contending with me in the matter of
speaking, and of getting rid of the charges I bring against
your client in this cause, I, too, would devote much pains to
making an elaborate accusation, and to dilating on my
charges. Now, since you have determined to contend against
me with artifice, not so much in obedience to the promptings
of your own nature, as from consulting his occasions and his
cause, it is necessary for me to oppose conduct of that sort
with prudence. Your plan is, to begin to answer me after
two sets of games have been celebrated ; mine is to have
the adjournment1 over before the first games. And the result
will be, that that plan of yours will be thought crafty, but this
determination of mine necessary.
XII. But as for what I had begun to say, — namely, that the
contest is between you and me, this is it, — I, when I had
undertaken this cause at the request of the Sicilians, and had
1 The Latin is, ut comperendinem. " Comperendinare is, when the
cause has been pleaded on each side, to order that on the third day both
the defendant and the prosecutor appear to speak a second time." —
Hottoman. " The parties appeared before the judex on the third day
(comperendinatio), unless the praetor had deferred the judicium for some
sufficient reason." — Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 529, v. Judex.
I. AGAINST VERRE3. 145
thought it a very honounable and glorious thing for me that
they were willing to make experiment of my integrity and
diligence, who already knew by experience my innocence and
temperance : then, when I had undertaken this business, I
proposed to myself some greater action also by which the
Roman people should be able to see my good-will towards the
republic. For that seemed to me to be by no means worthy
of my industry and efforts, for that man to be brought to
trial by me who had been already condemned by the judg
ment of all men, unless that intolerable influence of yours,
and that grasping nature which you have displayed for some
years in many trials, was interposed also in the case of that
desperate man. But now, since all this dominion and
sovereignty of yours over the courts of justice delights you
so much, and since there are some men who are neither
ashamed of their licentiousness and their infamy, nor weary
of it, and who, as if on purpose, seem to wish to encounter
hatred and unpopularity from the Roman people, I profess
that I have undertaken this, — a great burden perhaps, and one
dangerous to myself, but still worthy of my applying myself
to it with all the vigour of my age, and all diligence. And
since the whole order of the senate is weighed down by the
discredit brought on it by the wickedness and audacity of a
few, and is overwhelmed by the infamy of the tribunals, I pro
fess myself an enemy to this race of men, an accuser worthy of
their hatred, a persevering, a bitter adversary. I arrogate this
to myself, I claim this for myself, and I will carry out this
enmity in my magistracy, and from that post in which the
Roman people has willed that from the next first of January
I shall act in concert with it in matters concerning the re
public, and concerning wicked men. I promise the Roman
people that this shall be the most honourable and the fairest
employment of my sedileship. I warn, I forewarn, I give
notice beforehand to those men who are wont either to put
money down, to undertake for others, to receive money, or to
promise money, or to act as agents in bribery, or as go-
betweens in corrupting the seat of judgment, and who have
promised their influence or their impudence in aid of such
a business, in this trial to keep their hands and inclinations
from this nefarious wickedness.
XIII. Hortensius will then be consul with the chief com
mand and authority, but I shall be sedile — that is, I shall be a
L
146 CICERO'S ORATIOXS.
little mope than a private individual ; and yet this business,
which I promise that I am going to advocate, is of such a
nature, so pleasing and agreeable t© the Roman people, that
the consul himself will appear in this cause, if that be pos
sible, even less than a private individual in comparison of me.
All those things shall not only be mentioned, but even, when
certain matters have been explained, shall be fully discussed,
which for the last ten years, ever since the office of the judge
has been transferred to the senate, has been nefariously and
wickedly done in the decision of judicial matters. The
Roman people shall know from me why it is that when the
equestrian body supplied the judges for nearly fifty years
together, not even the slightest suspicion ever arose of bribes
having been accepted for the purpose of influencing a decision ;
why it is, I say, when the judicial authority was transferred
to the senatorial body, and the power ' of the Roman people
over every one of us was taken away, Quintus Calidius, when
he was condemned, said that a man of praetorian rank could
not honestly be condemned at a less price than three hundred
thousand sesterces ; why it is that when Publius Septimius,
a senator, was condemned for extortion, when Quintus Hor-
tensius was praetor, damages were assessed against him, in
cluding money which he had received as judge to decide
causes which came before him ; why it is, that in the case
of Caius Herennius, and in that of Caius Popillius, senators,
both of whom were convicted of peculation — why it is, that
in the case of Marcus Atilius, who was convicted of treason —
this was made plain, — that they had all received money for
the purpose of influencing their judicial decisions ; why it is,
that senators have been found who, when Caius Verres, as
prretor of the city, gave out the lots, voted against the
criminal whom they were condemning without having in
quired into his case ; why it is, that a senator was found who,
when he was judge, took money in one and the same trial
both from the defendant to distribute among the judges, and
from the accuser to condemn the defendant. But hoAy shall
I adequately complain of that stain, that disgrace, that cala
mity of the whole senatorial order, — that this thing actually
happened in the city while the senatorial order furnished the
judges, that the votes of men on their oaths were marked by
That is to say, when the power of appealing to the tribunes of the
people was taken away.
I. AGAINST VERRES. 147
coloured tablets ? I pledge myself that I will urge all these
things with diligence and with strictness.
XIV. And what do you suppose will be my thoughts, if I
find in this very trial any violation of the laws committed in
any similar manner 1 especially when I can prove by many
witnesses that Caius Verres often said in Sicily, in the hearing
of many persons, " that he had a powerful friend, in confidence
in whom he was plundering the province ; and that he was not
seeking money for himself alone, but that he had so distributed
the three years of his Sicilian praetorship, that he should say he
did exceedingly well, if he appropriated the gains of one year
to the augmentation of his own property, those of the second
year to his patrons and defenders, and reserved the whole
of the third year, the most productive and gainful of all, for
the judges." From which it came into my mind to say that
which, when I had said lately before Marcus Glabrio at the
time of striking the list of judges, I perceived the Roman
people greatly moved by ; that I thought that foreign nations
would send ambassadors to the Roman people to procure the
abrogation of the law, and of all trials, about extortion ; for if
there were no trials, they think that each mail would only
plunder them of as much as he would think sufficient for him
self and his children ; but now, because there are trials of
that sort, every one carries off as much as it will take to
satisfy himself, his patrons, his advocates, the praetor, and the
judges ; and that this is an enormous sum ; that they may be
able to satisfy the cupidity of one most avaricious man, but
are quite unable to incur the expense of his most guilty vic
tory over the laws. 0 trials worthy of being recorded ! 0
splendid reputation of our order ! when the allies of the
Roman people are unwilling that trials for extortion should
take place, which were instituted by our ancestors for the sake
of the allies. Would that man ever have had a favourable
hope of his own safety, if he had not conceived in his mind a
bad opinion of you 1 on which account, he ought, if possible,
to be still more hated by you than he is by the Roman people,
because he considers you like himself in avarice and wicked
ness and perjury.
XV. And I beg you, in the name of the immortal gods, 0
judges, think of and guard against this ; I warn you, I give
notice to you, of what I am well assured, that this most sea
sonable opportunity has been given to you by the favour of
148 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
the gods, for the purpose of delivering your whole order from
hatred, from unpopularity, from infamy, and from disgrace.
There is no severity believed to exist in the tribunals, nor any
scruples with regard to religion ; in short, there are not be
lieved to be any tribunals at all. Therefore we are despised
and scorned by the Roman people ; we are branded with a
heavy and now a long standing infamy. Nor, in fact, is there
any other reason for which the Roman people has with so
much earnestness sought the restoration of the tribunician
power : but when it was demanding that in words, it seemed
to be asking for that, but in reality it was asking for tiibunals
which it could trust. And this did not escape the notice of
Quintus Catulus, a most sagacious and honourable man, who,
when Cnaeus Pompeius, a most gallant and illustrious man,
made a motion about the tribunitian power, and when
he was asked his opinion, begun his speech in this man
ner, speaking with the greatest authority, " that the conscript
fathers presided over the courts of justice badly and wickedly;
but if in deciding judicial trials they had been willing to
satisfy the expectations of the Roman people, men would not
so greatly regret the tribunitian power." Lastly, when Cnseus
Pompeius himself, when first he delivered an address to the
people as consul elect, mentioned (what seemed above all
things to be watched for) that he would restore the power of
the tribunes, a great shout was raised at his words, and a
grateful murmur pervaded the assembly. And when he had
said also in the same assembly " that the provinces were
depopulated and tyrannised over, that the courts of justice
were become base and wicked, and that he desired to provide
for and to remedy that evil," the Roman people then signified
their good will, not with a shout, but with a universal uproar.
XVI. But now men are on the watch towers; they observe
how every one of you behaves himself in respecting religion
and in preserving the laws. They see that, ever since the
passing of the law for restoring the power of the tribunes, only
one senator, and he too a very insignificant one,1 has been
condemned. And though they do not blame this, yet they
have nothing which they can very much commend. For there
is no credit in being upright in a case where there is no one
who is either able or who endeavours to corrupt one. This is
a trial in which you will be deciding about the defendant, the
1 The senator was Dolabella.
I. AGAINST VERRES. 149
Roman people about you ; — by the example of what happens
to this man it will be determined whether, when senators
are the judges, a very guilty and a very rich man can be
condemned. Moreover, he is a criminal of such a sort, that
there is absolutely nothing whatever in him except the
greatest crimes, and excessive riches ; so that if he be
acquitted, no other opinion can be formed of the matter
except that which is the most discreditable possible. Such
numerous and enormous vices as his will not be considered
to have been cancelled by influence, by family connexion,
by some things which may have been done well, or even by
the minor vices of flattery and subservience ; in short, I will
conduct the cause in this manner ; I will bring forward
things of such a sort, so well known, so proved by evidence,
so important, and so undeniable, that no one shall venture
to use his influence to obtain from you the acquittal of that
man ; for I have a sure path and method by which I can
investigate and become acquainted with all their endeavours.
The matter will be so managed by me that not only the ears
but even the eyes of the Roman people shall seem to be pre
sent at all their counsels. You have in your power to remove
and to eradicate the disgrace and infamy whieh has now for
many years attached to your order. It is evident to all men,
that since these tribunals have been established which we now
have, there has never been a bench of judges of the same
splendour and dignity as l this. If anything is done wrongly
in this case, all men will think not that other more capable
judges should be appointed of the same order of men, which
is not possible ; but that another order must be sought for,
from which to select the judges for the future.
XVII. On which account, in the first place, I beg this of
the immortal gods, which I seem to myself to have hopes of
too, that in this trial no one may be found to be wicked except
him who has long since been found to be such ; secondly, if
there are many wicked men, I promise this to you, 0 judges,
I promise this to the Roman people, that my life shall fail
rather than my vigour and perseverance in prosecuting their
iniquity. But that iniquity, which, if it should be committed,
1 Cicero several times in these orations takes credit to himself for his
industry and intrepidity in striking all judges liable to suspicion off the
list of those who were to try this case.
150 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
I promise to prosecute severely, with however much trouble
and danger to myself, and whatever enmities I may bring on
myself by so doing, you, 0 Marcus Glabrio, can guard against
ever taking place by your wisdom, and authority, and dili
gence. Do you undertake the cause of the tribunals. Do
you undertake the cause of impartiality, of integrity, of good
faith and of religion. Do you undertake the cause of the
senate ; that, being proved worthy by its conduct in this trial,
it may come into favour and popularity with the Roman
people. Think who you are, and in what a situation you
are placed; what you ought to give to the Roman people,
what you ought to repay to your ancestors. Let the recollec
tion of the Acilian ' law passed by your father occur to your
mind, owing to which law the Roman people has had this
advantage of most admirable decisions and very strict judges
in cases of extortion. High authorities surround you which
will not suffer you to forget your family credit ; which will
remind you day and night that your father was a most brave
man, your grandfather a most wise one, and your father-in-law
a most worthy man. Wherefore, if you have inherited the vigour
and energy of your father Glabrio in resisting audacious
men ; if you have inherited the prudence of your grandfather
Sca^vola in foreseeing intrigues which are prepared against
your fame and that of your fellow-judges ; if you have any
share of the constancy of your father-in-law Scaurus, so that
no one can move you from your genuine and deliberate
opinion, the Roman people will understand that with an
upright and honourable praetor, and a carefully selected bench
of judges, abundance of wealth has more influence in bring
ing a criminal into suspicion, than in contributing to his
safety.
XVIII. I am resolved not to permit the praetor or the
judges to be changed in this cause. I will not permit the
matter to be delayed till the lictors of the consuls can go and
summon the Sicilians, whom the servants of the consuls elect
did not influence before, when by an unprecedented course of
proceeding they sent for them ail ; I will not permit those
1 The Lex Acilia was carried by Marcus Acilius Glabrio, the father
of this Glabrio, when tribune of the people ; it abridged the proceedings
in trials for extortion, and did not allow of the adjournment and delays
which were permitted by previously existing laws.
I. AGAINST VEREE3. 151
miserable men, formerly the allies and friends of the Roman
people, now their slaves and suppliants, to lose not only their
rights and fortunes by their tyranny, but to be deprived of
even the power of bewailing their condition ; I will not, I
say, when the cause has been summed up by me, permit them
after a delay of forty days has intervened, then at last to reply
to me when my accusation has already fallen into oblivion
through lapse of time ; I will not permit the decision to be
given when this crowd collected from all Italy has departed
from Rome, which has assembled from all quarters at the
same time on account of the comitia, of the games, and of
the census. The reward of the credit gained by your deci
sion, or the danger arising from the unpopularity which will
accrue to you if you decide unjustly, I think ought to belong
to you ; the labour and anxiety to me ; the knowledge of
what is done and the recollection of what has been said by
every one, to all. I will adopt this course, not an unpre
cedented one, but one that has been adopted before, by those
who are now the chief men of our state, — the course, I mean,
of at once producing the witnesses. What you will find novel,
0 judges, is this, that I will so marshal my witnesses as to
unfold the whole of my accusation ; that when I have esta
blished it by examining my witnesses, by arguments, and by my
speech, then I shall show the agreement of the evidence with
my accusation : so that there shall be no difference between
the established mode of prosecuting, and this new one, except
that, according to the established mode, when everything has
been said which is to be said, then the witnesses are pro
duced ; here they shall be produced as each count is brought
forward ; so that the other side shall have the same opportu
nity of examining them, of arguing and making speeches on
their evidence. If there be any one who prefers an uninter
rupted speech and the old mode of conducting a prosecution
without any break, he shall have it in some other trial. But
for this time let him understand that what we do is done by
us on compulsion, (for we only do it with the design of oppo
sing the artifice of the opposite party by our prudence.) This
will be the first part of the prosecution. We say that Caius
Verres has not only done many licentious acts, many cruel
ones, towards Roman citizens, and towards some of the allies,
many wicked acts against both gods and men ; but especially
152 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
that he has taken away four hundred thousand sesterces out
of Sicily contrary to the laws. We will make this so plain to
you by witnesses, by private documents, and by public records,
that you shall decide that, even if we had abundant space and
leisure days for making a long speech without any inconve
nience, still there was no need at ail of a long speech in this
matter.
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE SECOND PLEADING AGAINST
CAIUS VERRES.
RESPECTING HIS CONDUCT IN THE CITY PR^TORSHIP.
THE ARGUMENT.
The following five orations were never spoken ; they were published
afterwards as they had been prepared and intended to be spoken if
Verres had made a regular defence ; for as this was the only cause in
which Cicero had been engaged as accuser, he was willing to leave
these orations as a specimen of his abilities that way, and as a pattern
of a just and diligent impeachment of a corrupt magistrate. But
Hortensius had been so confounded by the novelty of Cicero's mode
of conducting the prosecution, and by the strength of the case brought
against his client, that he was quite unable to make any defence, and
Verres went into voluntary exile.
In the beginning of this oration Cicero imagines Verres to be present,
and to be prepared to make his defence ; but before he proceeds to the
main subjects of the prosecution, which occupy the last four orations,
he devotes this one to an examination of his previous character and
conduct as a public man, as quaestor, as legatus, as prater urbanus,
and as praetor in Sicily; in order to show that his previous conduct
had been such as to warrant any one in believing the charges he was
nov7 bringing against him.
I. I THINK that no one of you, 0 judges, is ignorant that for
these many days the discourse of the populace, and the
opinion of the Roman people, has been that Caius Verres
would not appear a second time before the bench to reply to
my charges, and would not again present himself in court.
And this idea had not got about merely because he had deli
berately determined and resolved not to appear, but because
no one believed that any one would be so audacious, so
frantic, and so impudent, as, after having been convicted of
such nefarious crimes, and by so many witnesses, to venture
II. AGAINST VERRES. 153
to present himself to the eyes of the judges, or to show his
face to the Roman people. But he is the same Verres that
he always was ; as he was abandoned enough to dare, so he is
hardened enough to listen to anything. He is present ; he
replies to us ; he makes his defence. He does not even leave
himself this much of character, to be supposed, by being silent
and keeping out of the way when he is so visibly convicted of
the most infamous conduct, to have sought for a modest
escape for his impudence. I can endure this, 0 judges, and I
am not vexed that I am to receive the reward of my labours,
and you the reward of your virtue. For if he had done what
he at first determined to, that is, had not appeared, it would
have been somewhat less known than is desirable for me what
pains I had taken in preparing and arranging this prosecu
tion : and your praise, 0 judges, would have been exceedingly
slight and little heard of. For this is not what the Eoman
people is expecting from you, nor what it can be contented
with, — namely, for a man to be condemned who refuses to
appear, and for you to act with resolution in the case of a man
whom nobody has dared to defend. Aye, let him appear, let
him reply ; let him be defended with the utmost influence
and the utmost zeal of the most powerful men ; let my dili
gence have to contend with the covetousness of all of them,
your integrity with his riches, the consistency of the witnesses
with the threats and power of his patrons. Then indeed those
things will be seen to be overcome when they have come to
the contest and to the struggle. But if he had been con
demned in his absence, he would have appeared not so much
to have consulted his own advantage as to have grudged you
your credit.
II. For neither can there be any greater safety for the
republic imagined at this time, than for the Roman people to
understand that, if all unworthy judges are carefully rejected
by the accusers, the allies, the laws, and the republic can be
thoroughly defended by a bench of judges chosen from the
senators ; nor can any siich injury to the fortunes of all
happen, as for all regard for truth, for integrity, for good
faith, and for religion to be, in the opinion of the Roman
people, cast aside by the senatorial body. And therefore, I
seem to myself, 0 judges, to have undertaken to uphold an
important, and very failing, and almost neglected part of the
154 CICERO'S OKATIONS.
republic, and by so doing to be acting not more for the benefit
of my own reputation than of yours. For I have come for
ward to diminish the unpopularity of the courts of justice,
and to remove the reproaches which are levelled at them ; in
order that, when this cause has been decided according to the
•wish of the Roman people, the authority of the courts of
justice may appear to have been re-established in some degree
by my diligence ; and in order that this matter may be so
decided that an end may be put at length to the controversy
about the tribunals; and, indeed, beyond all question, O
judges, that matter depends on your decision in this cause.
For the criminal is most guilty. And if he be condemned,
men will cease to say that money is all powerful with the
present tribunal j but if he be acquitted we shall cease to be
able to make any objection to transferring the tribunal to
another body. Although that fellow has not in reality any
hope, nor the Roman people any fear of his acquittal, there
are some men who do marvel at his singular impudence in
being present, in replying to the accusations brought against
him • but to me even this does not appear marvellous in
comparison with his other actions of audacity and madness.
For he has done many impious and nefarious actions both
against gods and men ; by the punishment for which crimes
he is now disquieted and driven out of his mind and out of
his senses.
III. The punishments of Roman citizens are driving him
mad, some of whom he has delivered to the executioner, others
he has put to death in prison, others he has crucified while
demanding their rights as freemen and as Roman citizens.
The gods of his fathers are hurrying him away to punishment,
because he alone has been found to lead to execution sons torn
from the embraces of their fathers, and to demand of parents
payment for leave to bury their sons. The reverence due to,
and the holy ceremonies practised in, every shrine and every
temple — but all violated by him ; and the images of the gods,
which have not only been taken away from their temples, but
which are even lying in darkness, having been cast aside and
thrown away by him — do not allow his mind to rest free from
frenzy and madness. Nor does he appear to me merely to
offer himself to condemnation, nor to be content with the
common punishment of avarice, when he has involved himself
II. AGAINST VERRES. 155
in so many atrocities ; his savage and monstrous nature wishes
for some extraordinary punishment. It is not alone demanded
that, by his condemnation, their property may be restored to
those from whom it has been taken away ; but the insults
offered to the religion of the immortal gods must be expiated,
and the tortures of Roman citizens, and the blood of many
innocent men, must be atoned for by that man's punishment.
For we have brought before your tribunal not only a thief,
but a wholesale robber ; not only an adulterer, but a ravisher
of chastity ; not only a sacrilegious man, but an open enemy
to all sacred things and all religion ; not only an assassin, but
a most barbarous murderer of both citizens and allies; so that
I think him the only criminal in the memory of man so atro
cious, that it is even for his own good to be condemned.
IV. For who is there who does not see this, that though he
be acquitted, against the will of gods and men, yet that ho
cannot possibly be taken out of the hands of the Roman
people? Who does not see that it would be an excellent
thing for us in that case, if the Roman people were content
with the punishment of that one criminal alone, and did not
decide that he had not committed any greater wickedness
against them when he plundered temples, when he murdered
so many innocent men, when he destroyed Roman citizens by
execution, by torture, by the cross, — when he released leaders
of banditti for bribes, — than they, who, when on their oaths,
acquitted a man covered with so many, with such enormous,
with such unspeakable wickednesses 1 There is, there is, O
judges, no room for any one to err in respect of this man. He
is not such a criminal, this is not such a time, this is not such a
tribunal, (I fear to seem to say anything too arrogant before
such men,) even the advocate is not such a man, that a criminal
so guilty, so abandoned, so plainly convicted, can be either
stealthily or openly snatched out of his hands with impunity.
When such men as these are judges, shall I not be able to
prove that Caius Verres has taken bribes contrary to the
laws ? Will such men venture to assert that they have not
believed so many senators, so many Roman knights, so many
cities, so many men of the highest honour from so illustrious
a province, so many letters of whole nations and of private
individuals ? that they have resisted so general a wish of the
Roman people 1 Let them venture. We will find, if we are
156 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
able to bring that fellow alive before another tribunal, men to
whom we can prove that he in his queestorship embezzled the
public money which was given to Cnasus Carbo the consul ;
men whom we can persuade that he got money under false
pretences from the qusestors of the city, as you have learnt
in my former pleadings. There will be some men, too, who
will blame his boldness in having released some of the con
tractors from supplying the corn due to the public, when they
could make it for his own interest. There will even, perhaps,
be some men who will think that robbery of his most espe
cially to be punished, when he did not hesitate to carry
off out of the most holy temples and out of the cities of our
allies and friends, the monuments of Marcus Marcellus and of
Publius Africanus, which in name indeed belonged to them,
but in reality both belonged and were always considered to
belong to the Koman people.
V. Suppose he has escaped from the court about pecula
tion. Let him think of the generals of the enemy, for whose
release he has accepted bribes; let him consider what answer
he can make about those men whom he has left in his own
house to substitute in their places ;l let him consider not only
how he can get over our accusation, but also how he can
remedy his own confession. Let him recollect that, in the
former pleadings, being excited by the adverse and hostile
shouts of the Roman people, he confessed tuat he had not
caused the leaders of the pirates to be executed ; and that he
was afraid even then that it would be imputed to him that he
had released them for money. Let him confess that, which
cannot be denied, that he, as a private individual, kept the
leaders of the pirates alive and unhurt in his own house, after
he had returned to Rome, as long as he could do so for me.
If in the case of such a prosecution for treason it was lawful
for him to do so, I will admit that it was proper. Suppose
he escapes from this accusation also; I will proceed to that
1 This refers to the following act of Verres : — A single pirate ship had
been taken by his lieutenant ; the captain bribed Verres to save his life,
but the people were impatient for the execution of him and his chief
officers. Verres, who had in his dungeons many Roman citizens who
had offended him, muffled up their faces, so that they could not speak
and could not be recognised, and produced them on the scaffold, and
put them to death as the pirates for whose execution the people were
clamouring.
I. AGAINST VEERES. /1 37
L__^
Sicilians, our own allies and friends, died of hunger ; the best
built fleets on the most important stations were lost and
destroyed, to the great disgrace of the Roman people. This
sa me man while praetor plundered and stripped those most
an cient monuments, some erected by wealthy monarchs and
intended by them as ornaments for their cities; some, too, the
w ork of our own generals, which they either gave or restored as
conquerors to the different states in Sicily. And he did this
not only in the case of public statues and ornaments, but he
also plundered all the temples consecrated in the deepest reli
gious feelings of the people. He did not leave, in short, one
god to the Sicilians which appeared to him to be made in a
tolerably workmanlike manner, and with any of the skill of
the ancients. I am prevented by actual shame from speaking
of his nefarious licentiousness as shown in rapes and other
such enormities ; and I am unwilling also to increase the
distress of those men who have been unable to preserve their
children and their wives unpolluted by his wanton lust. But,
you will say, these things were done by him in such a manner
as not to be notorious to all men. I think there is no man
who has heard his name who cannot also relate wicked actions
of his ; so that I ought rather to be afraid of being thought
to omit many of his crimes, than to invent any charges against
him. And indeed I do not think that this multitude which
has collected to listen to me wishes so much to learn of me
what the facts of the case are, as to go over it with me,
refreshing its recollection of what it knows already.
VI. And as this is the case, that senseless and profligate
man attempts to combat me in another manner. He does not
custom of the praetors to fit out a fleet every year for the protection of
trade. This fleet was provided by a contribution of the maritime towns,
each of which usually furnished a ship, properly appointed with men
and provisions ; but Verres, for a sufficient bribe, often excused them
from providing the ship, and always discharged as many men as were
willing to pay for it. On one occasion a fleet was fitted out, and the
command of it given, not to any Roman officer, but to Cleomenes,
a Syracusan, who being both incapable, and also short of hands from the
proceedings of Verres, was attacked in the port of Pachynus, two of his
ships taken, and the rest burnt ; after which the pirates sailed into the
port of Syracuse, and returned back in safety ; but Verres compelled all
the captains of Cleomenes's fleet to sign a document testifying that this
disaster had not happened through any deficiency in the equipment of
their ships, which were fully provided with everything necessary, and
then he put them to death.
158 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
most virtuous and accomplished men (in which number many
of you were) approved of to such a degree, that they refused
the man who had been his qusestor, and who, having been
offended by him, wished to prosecute his own quarrel against
him, leave not only to prosecute the man himself, but even back
the accusation against him, when he himself begged to do so.
I went into Sicily for the sake of inquiring into the business,
in which occupation the celerity of my return showed my in
dustry ; the multitude of documents and witnesses which I
brought with me declared my diligence ; and I further showed
my moderation and scrupulousness, in that when I had arrived
as a senator among the allies of the Roman people, having been
qusestor in that province, I, though the defender of the
common cause of them all, lodged rather with my own
hereditary friends and connexions, than those who had sought
that assistance from me. My arrival was no trouble nor
expense to any one, either publicly or privately. I used in
the inquiry just as much power as the law gave me, not as
much as I might have had through the zeal of those men
whom that fellow had oppressed. When I returned to Rome
from Sicily, when he and his friends, luxurious and polite
men, had disseminated reports of this sort, in order to blunt
the inclinations of the witnesses, — such as that I had been
seduced by a great bribe from proceeding with a genuine pro
secution ; although it did not seem probable to any one,
because the witnesses from Sicily were men who had known
me as qusestor in the province ; and as the witnesses from
Rome were men of the highest character, who knew every one
of us thoroughly, just as they themselves are known ; still I
had some apprehension lest any one should have a doubt of
my good faith and integrity, till we came to striking out the
objectionable judges.
VII. I knew that in selecting the judges, some men, even
within my own recollection, had not avoided the suspicion of
a good understanding with the opposite party, though their
industry and diligence was being proved actually in the pro
secution of them. I objected to objectionable judges in such
a way that this is plain, — that since the republic has had that
constitution which we now enjoy, no tribunal has ever existed
of similar renown and dignity. And this credit that fellow
says that he shares in common with me ; since when he
[I. AGAINST VERRES.
159
rejected Publius Galba as judge, he retained Marcus Lucre
tius ; and when, upon this, his patron asked him why he had
allowed his most intimate friends Sextus Pseduceus, Quintus
Considius, and Quintus Junius, to be objected to, he answered,
because he knew them to be too much attached to their own
ideas and opinions in coming to a decision. And so when the
business of objecting to the judges was over, I hoped that
you and I had now one common task before us. I thought
that my good faith and diligence was npproved of, not only
by those to whom I was known, but evt.t by strangers. And
I was not mistaken : for in the comitia for my election, when
that man was employing boundless bribery against me, the
Roman people decided that his money, which had no influence
with me when put in opposition to my own good faith, ought
to have no influence with them to rob me of my honour. On
the day when you first, 0 judges, were summoned to this
place, and sat in judgment on this criminal, who was so
hostile to your order, who was so desirous of a new constitu
tion, of a new tribunal and new judges, as not to be moved
at the sight of you and of your assembled body? When on the
trial your dignity procured me the fruit of my diligence,
I gained thus much, — that in the same hour that I began to
speak, I cut off from that audacious, wealthy, extravagant,
and abandoned criminal, all hope of corrupting the judges ;
that on the very first day, when such a number of witnesses
had been brought forward, the Roman people determined that
if he were acquitted, the republic would no longer exist ; that
the second day took away from his friends, not only all hope
of victory, but even all inclination to make any defence ;
that the third day prostrated the man so entirely, that, pre
tending to be sick, he took counsel, not what reply he could
make, but how he could avoid making any ; and after that,
on the subsequent days, he was so oppressed and over
whelmed by these accusations, by these witnesses, both from
the city and from the provinces, that when these days of the
games intervened, no one thought that he had procured an
adjournment, but they thought that he was condemned.
VIII. So that, as far as I am concerned, 0 judges, I gained
the day ; for I did not desire the spoils of Caius Verres, but
the good opinion of the Roman people. It was my business
to act as accuser only if I had a good cause. What cause
160 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
was ever juster than the being appointed and selected by so
illustrious a province as its defender ? To consult the welfare
of the republic ; — what could be more honourable for the
republic, than while the tribunals were in such general dis
credit, to bring before them a man by whose condemnation
the whole order of the senate might be restored to credit and
favour with the Roman people ? — to prove and convince men
that it was a guilty man who was brought to trial? Who is
there of the Roman people who did not carry away this con
viction from th« previous pleading, that if all the wicked
nesses, thefts, and enormities of all who have ever been
condemned before were brought together into one place, they
could scarcely be likened or compai-ed to but a small part of
this man's crimes 1 Do you, 0 judges, consider and deliberate
as becomes your fame, your reputation, and the common
safety 1 Your eminence prevents your being able to make
any mistake without the greatest injury and danger to the
republic. For the Roman people cannot hope that there are
any other men in the senate who can judge uprightly, if you
cannot. It is inevitable that, when it has learnt to despair of
the whole order, it should look for another class of men and
another system of judicial proceedings. If this seems to you
at all a trifling matter, because you think the being judges a
grave and inconvenient burden, you ought to be aware, in the
first place, that it makes a difference whether you throw off
that burden yourselves, of your own accord, or whether the
power of sitting as judges is taken away from you because
you have been unable to convince the Roman people of your
good faith and scrupulous honesty. In the second place,
consider this also, with what great danger we shall come
before those judges whom the Roman people, by reason of its
hatred to you, has willed shall judge concerning you. But I
will tell you, 0 judges, what I am sure of. Know, then, that
there are some men who are possessed with such a hatred of
your order, that they now make a practice of openly saying
that they are willing for that man, whom they know to be a
most infamous one, to be acquitted for this one reason, — that
then the honour of the judgment-seat may be taken from the
senate with ignominy and disgrace. It is not my fear for your
good faith, 0 judges, which has urged me to lay these con
siderations before you at some length, but the new hopes
II. AGAINST VEERES. 161
which those men are entertaining ; for when those hopes had
brought Verres suddenly back from the gates of the city to
this court, some men suspected that his intention had not
been changed so suddenly without a cause.
IX. Now, in order that Hortensius may not be able to
employ any new sort of complaint, and to say that a defendant
is oppressed if the accuser says nothing about him ; that
nothing is so dangerous to the fortunes of an innocent man as
for his adversaries to keep silence ; and in order that he may
not ^praise my abilities in a way which' I do not like, while
he says that, if I had said much, I should have relieved him
against whom I was speaking, and that I have undone him
because I said nothing, — I will comply with his wishes, I shall
employ one long unbroken speech : not because it is neces
sary, but that I may try whether he will be most vexed at
my having been silent then or at my speaking now. Here
you, perhaps, will take care that I do not remit one hour of
the time allowed me by law. If I do not employ the whole
time which is allowed me by law, you will complain ; you
will invoke the faith of gods and men, calling them to witness
how Caius Verres is circumvented because the prosecutor will
not speak as long as he is allowed to speak by the law. What
the law gives me for my own sake, may I not be allowed to
forbear using 1 For the time for stating the accusation is
given me for my own sake, that I may be able to unfold my
charges and the whole cause in my speech. If I do not use
it all, I do you no injury, but I give up something of my own
right and advantage. You injure me, says he, for the cause
ought to be thoroughly investigated. Certainly, for otherwise
a defendant cannot be condemned, however guilty he may be.
Were you, then, indignant that anything should be done by
me to make it less easy for him to be condemned ? For if
the cause be understood, many men may be acquitted • if it
be not understood, no one can be condemned. I injure him,
it seems, for I take away the right of adjournment. The
most vexatious thing that the law has in it, the allowing
a cause to be twice pleaded, has either been instituted for my
sake rather than for yours, or, at all events, not more for your
sake than for mine. For if to speak twice be an advantage,
certainly it is an advantage which is common to both. If
there is a necessity that he who has spoken last should be
M
1G2 CICERO'b ORATIONS.
refuted, then it is for the sake of the prosecutor that the law
has been established that there should be a second discussion.
But, as I imagine, Glaucia first proposed the law that the
defendant might have an adjournment ; before that time the
decision might either be given at once, or the judges might
take time to consider. Which law, then, do you think the
mildest 1 I think that ancient one, by which a man might
either be acquitted quickly, or condemned after deliberation.
I restore you that law of Acilius, according to which many
men who have only been accused once, whose cause has
only been pleaded once, in whose case witnesses have
only been heard once, have been condemned on charges by
no means so clearly proved, nor so flagitious as those on
which you are convicted. Think that you are pleading your
cause, not according to that severe law, but according to that
most merciful one. I will accuse you ; you shall reply.
Having produced my witnesses, I will lay the whole matter
before the bench in such a way, that even if the law gave
them a power of adjournment, yet they shall think it dis
creditable to themselves not to decide at the first hearing.
X. But if it be necessary for the cause to be thoroughly
investigated, has this one been investigated but superficially ?
Are we keeping back anything, 0 Hortensius, a trick which
we have often seen practised in pleading 1 Who ever attends
much to the advocate in this sort of action, in which anything
is said to have been carried off and stolen by any one 1 Is not
all the expectation of the judges fixed on the documents or on
the witnesses 1 I said in the first pleading that I would make
it plain that Caius Verres hud carried off four hundred thou
sand sesterces contrary to th law. What ought I to have said 1
Should I have pleaded more plainly if I had related the whole
affair thus ? — There was a certain man of Halesa, named Dio,
who, when a great inheritance had come to his son from a
relation while Sacerdos was prsetor, had at the time no trou
ble nor dispute about it. Verres, as soon as he arrived in the
province, immediately wrote letters from Messana ; he sum
moned Dio before him, he procured false witnesses from
among his own friends to say that that inheritance had been
forfeited to Venus Erycina. He announced that he himself
would take cognisance of that matter. I can detail to you
the whole affair in regular order, and at last tell you what
II. AGAINST VERRES. 163
the result was, namely, that Dio paid a million of sesterces, in
order to prevail in a cause of most undeniable justice, besides
that Verres had his herds of mares driven away, and all his
plate and embroidered vestments carried off. But neither
while I was so relating these things, nor while you were deny
ing them, would our speeches be of any great importance. At
what time then would the judge prick up his ears and begin
to strain his attention 1 When Dio himself came forward, and
the others who had at that time been engaged in Sicily on
Dio's business, when, at the very time when Dio was pleading his
cause, he was proved to have borrowed money, to have called
in all that was owing to him, to haye sold farms; when
the accounts of respectable men were produced, when they
who had supplied Dio with money said that they had heard
at the time that the money was taken on purpose to be given
to Verres ; when the friends, and connexions, and patrons of
Dio, most honourable men, said that they had heard the same
thing. Then, when this was going on, you would, I siippose,
attend as you did attend. Then the cause would seem to be
going on. Everything was managed by me in the former
pleading so that among all the charges thei'e was not one in
which any one of you desired an uninterrupted statement of
the case. I deny that anything was said by the witnesses which
was either obscure to any one of you, or which required the
eloquence of any orator to set it off.
XL Tn truth, you must recollect that I conducted the case
in this way ; I set forth and detailed the whole charge at the
time of the examination of witnesses, so that as soon as I had
explained the whole affair, I then immediately examined the
witness. And by that means, not only you, who have to judge,
are in possession of our charges, but also the Roman people
became acquainted with the whole accusation and the whole
cause : although I am speaking of my own conduct as if I
had done so of my own will rather than because I was induced
to do so by any injustice of yours. But you interposed
another accuser, who, when I had only demanded a hundred
and ten days to prosecute my inquiries in Sicily, demanded
a hundred and eight for himself to go for a similar pur
pose into Achaia. When you had deprived me of the three
months most suitable for conducting my cause, you thought
that I should give you up the remainder of the year, so that,
Ibl CICEFwOS ORATIONS.
when we had employed the time allowed to me, you, 0 Hor-
tensius, after the interruption of two festivals, might make
your reply forty days afterwards ; and then, that the time
might be so spun out, that we might come from Marcus Gla-
brio, the praetor, and from the greater part of these judges, to
another preetor, and other judges. If I had not seen this — if
every one, both acquaintances and strangers, had not warned
me that the object which they were driving at, which they
Tvere contriving, for which they were striving, was to cause
the matter to be delayed to that time — I suppose, if I had
chosen to spend all the time allowed me in stating the
accusation, I should be under apprehensions that I should not
have charges enough to bring, that subjects for a speech would
be wanting to me, that my voice and strength would fail me ;
that I should not be able to accuse twice a man whom no one
had dared to defend at the first pleading of the cause. I
made my conduct appear reasonable both to the judges and
also to the Roman people. There is no one who thinks that
their injustice and impudence could have been opposed by
.any other means. Indeed, how great would have been my
folly, if, though I might have avoided it, I had allowed mat
ters to come on on the day which they who had undertaken
to deliver him from justice provided for in their undertaking,
when they gave their undertaking to deliver him in these
woi'ds — " If the trial took place on or after the first of Janu
ary ?" Now I must provide for the careful management of
the time which is allowed me for making a speech, since I am
determined to state the whole case most fully.
XII. Therefore I will pass by that first act of his life, most
infamous and most wicked as it was. He shall hear nothing
from me of the vices and offences of his childhood, nothing
.about his most dissolute youth : how that youth was spent,
you either remember, or else you can recognise it in the son
•whom he has brought up to be so like himself. I will pass
over everything which appears shameful to be mentioned ; and
I will consider not only what that fellow ought to have said
of himself, but also what it becomes me to say. Do you, I
entreat you, permit this, and grant to my modesty, that it
may be allowed to pass over in silence some portion of his
shamelessness. All that time which passed before he came
into office and became a public character, he may have free
II. AGAINST VERRES. 165
and untouched as far as I am concerned. Nothing shall be said
of his drunken nocturnal revels ; no mention shall be made of
his pimps, and dicers, and panders ; his losses at play, and the
licentious transactions which the estate of his father and his
own age prompted him to shall be passed over in silence. He
may have lived in all infamy at that time with impunity, as far
as I am concerned ; the rest of his life has been such that I can
well afford to put up with the loss of not mentioning those
enormities. You were quaestors to Cnacus Papirius the consul
fourteen years ago. All that you have done from that day to
this day I bring before the court. Not one hour will be found
free from theft, from wickedness, from cruelty, from atrocity.
These years have been passed by you in the quecstorship, and
in the lieutenancy in Asia, and in the city praetorship, and ia
the Sicilian praetorship. On which account a division of my
whole accusation will also be made into four parts.
XIII. As qucestor you received your province by lot, ac
cording to the decree of the senate. A consular province fell
to your lot, so that you were with Cnaeus Carbo, the consul,
?nd had that province. There was at that time dissension
among the citizens : and in that I am not going to say any
thing as to what part you ought to have taken. This only do
I say, that at such a time as that you ought to have made up
your mind which side you would take and which party you
would espouse. Carbo was very indignant that there had fallen
to his lot as his quaestor a man of such notorious luxury and
indolence. But he loaded him with all sorts of kindnesses.
Not to dwell too long on this ; money was voted, was paid ;l
he went as quaestor to the province ; he came into Gaul,
where he had been for some time expected, to the army of the
consul with the money. At the very first opportunity that
offered, (take notice of the principle on which the man dis
charged the duties of his offices, and administered the affairs
of the republic,) the quaestor, having embezzled the public
money, deserted the consul, the army, and his allotted pro
vince. I see what I have done ; he rouses himself up ; he
hopes that, in the instance of this charge, some breeze may
be wafted this way of good will and approbation from those
men to whom the name of Cnaeus Carbo, though dead,
1 By vote of the senate money was voted to the tribuni serarii, and
was paid by them to the quaestor, to be paid by him to the army.
166 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
is unwelcome, and to whom he hopes that that desertion
and betrayal of his consul will prove acceptable. As if he
had done it from any desire to take the part of the nobility,
or from any party zeal, and had not rather openly pillaged the
consul, the army and the province, and then, because of this
most impudent theft, had run away. For such an action as
that is obscure, and such that one may suspect that Caius
Verres, because he could not bear new men, passed over to
the nobility, that is, to his own party, and that he did nothing
from consideration of money. Let us see how he gave in his
accounts ; now he himself will show why he left Cnrcus Carbo ;
now he himself will show what he is.
XIV. First of all take notice of their brevity — " I received,"
says he, " two million two hundred and thirty-five thousand
four hundred and seventeen sesterces ; I spent, for pay to the
soldiers, for corn, for the lieutenants, for the pro-quaestor, for
the praetorian cohort, sixteen hundred and thirty-five thou
sand four hundred and seventeen sesterces ; I left at Arimi-
num six hundred thousand sesterces." Is this giving in
accounts ? Bid either I, or you, 0 Hortensius, or any man
ever give in his accounts in this manner 1 What does this
mean ? what impudence it is ! what audacity ! What prece
dent is there of any such in all the number of accounts that
have ever been rendered by public officers ? And yet these six
hundred thousand sesterces, as to which he could not even devise
a false account of whom he had paid them to, and which he
said he had left at Ariminum, — these six hundred thousand
sesterces which he had in hand, Carbo never touched, Sylla
never saw them, nor were they ever brought into the trea
sury. He selected Ariminum as the town, because at the
time when he was giving in his accounts, it had been taken
and plundered.1 He did not suspect, what he shall now find
out, that plenty of the Ariminians were left to us after that
disaster as witnesses to that point. Read now — " Accounts
rendered to Publius Lentulus, and Lucius Triarius, quaestors
of the city." Read on — " According to the decree of the
senate." In order to be allowed to give in accounts in such
a manner as this, he became one of Sylla's party in an instant,
and not for the sake of contributing to the restoration of
1 Arim'.num had been betrayed by Albinovanus, Marius's lieutenant,
to Sylla.
II. AGAINST VERRES. 107
honour and dignity to the nobility. Even if you had deserted
empty-handed, still your desertion would be decided to be
wicked, your betrayal of your consul, infamous. Oh, Cnteus
Carbo was a bad citizen, a scandalous consul, a seditious man.
He may have been so to others ; when did he begin to be so
to you ? After he entrusted to you the money, the supplying
of corn, all his accounts, and his army ; for if he had dis
pleased you before that, you would have done the same as
Marcus Piso did the year after. When he had fallen by lot
to Lucius Scipio, as consul, he never touched the money, he
never joined the army at all. The opinions he embraced con
cerning the republic he embraced BO as to do no violence to
his own good faith, to the customs of our ancestors, nor to
the obligations imposed on him by the lot which he had drawn.
XV. In truth, if we wish to disturb all these things, and
to throw them into confusion, we shall render life full of
danger, intrigue, and enmity ; if such allurements are to have
110 scruples to protect them ; if the connexion between men
in prosperous and doubtful fortunes is to cause no friendship ;
if the customs and principles of our ancestors are to have
no authority. He is the common enemy of all men who
has once been the enemy of his own connexiona No wise
man ever thought that a traitor was to be trusted ; Sylla
himself, to whom the arrival of the fellow ought to have been
most acceptable, removed him from himself and from his
army : he ordered him to remain at Beneventum, among those
men whom he believed to be exceedingly friendly to his party,
where he could do no harm to his cause and could have 110
influence on the termination of the war. Afterwards, indeed,
he rewarded him liberally ; he allowed him to seize some
estates of men who had been proscribed lying in the territory
of Beneventum ; he loaded him with honour as a traitor ; he
put no confidence in him as a friend. Now, although there
are men who hate Cnseus Carbo, though dead, yet they ought
to think, not what they were glad to have happen, but what
they themselves would have to fear in a similar case. This is
a misfortune common to many a cause for alarm, and a danger
common to many. There are no intrigues more difficult to
guard against than those which, are concealed under a pre
tence of duty, or under the name of some, intimate connexion.
For you can easily avoid one who is openly an adversary, by
168 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
guarding against him ; but this secret, internal, and domestic
evil not only exists, but even overwhelms you before you can
foresee it or examine into it. Is it not so ? When you were
sent as quaestor to the army, not only as guardian of the
money, but also of the consul ; when you were the sharer in
all his business and of all his counsels ; when you were con
sidered by him as one of his own children, according to the
tenor of the principles of our ancestors ; could you on a sud
den leave him ? desert him 1 pass over to the enemy 1 0
wickedness ! 0 monster to be banished to the very end of the
world ! For that nature which has committed such an atro
city as this cannot be contented with this one crime alone.
It must be always contriving something of this sort ; it must
be occupied in similar audacity and perfidy. Therefore, that
same fellow whom Cneeus Dolabella afterwards, when Caius
Malleolus had been slain, had for his quaestor, (I know not
whether this connexion was not even a closer one than the
connexion with Carbo, and whether the consideration of his
having been voluntarily chosen is not stronger than that of
his having been chosen by lot,) behaved to Cnaeus Dolabella in
the same manner as he had behaved in to Cnseus Carbo. For,
the charges which properly touched himself, he transferred to
his shoulders ; and gave information of everything connected
•with his cause tohis enemies and accusers. He himself gave most
hostile and most infamous evidence against the man to whom he
had been lieutenant and pro-qusestor. Dolabella, unfortunate
as he was, through his abominable betrayal, through his infa
mous and false testimony, was injured far more than by either,
by the odium created by that fellow's own thefts and atrocities.
XVI. What can you do with such a man 1 or what hope
can you allow so perfidious, so ill-omened an animal to enter
tain? Oae who despised and trampled on the lot which
bound him to Cnajus Carbo, the choice which connected him
with Cneeus Dolabella, and not only deserted them both, but
also betrayed and attacked them. Do not, I beg of you, 0
judges, judge of his crimes by the brevity of my speech
rather than by the magnitude of the actions themselves. For
I am forced to make haste in order to have time to set before
you all the things which I have resolved to relate to you.
Wherefore, now that his quccstorship has been put before you,
now that the dishonesty and wickedness of his first conduct
II. AGAINST VERRES. 169
in his first office has been thoroughly seen, listen, I pray you,
to the remainder. And in this I will pass over that period of
proscription and rapine which took place under Sylla ; nor
will I allow him to derive any argument for his own defence
from that time of common calamity to all men. I will accuse
him of nothing but his own peculiar and well-proved crimes.
Therefore, omitting all mention of the time of Sylla from the
accusation, consider that splendid lieutenancy of his. After
Cilicia was appointed to Cnteus Dolabella as his province, 0
ye immortal gods ! with what covetousness, with what inces~
sant applications, did he force from him that lieutenancy for
himself, which was indeed the beginning of the greatest cala
mity to Dolabella. For as he proceeded on his journey to the
province, wherever he went his conduct was such, that it was
not some lieutenant of the Roman people, but rather some
calamity that seemed to be going through the country.
XVII. In Achaia, (I will omit all minor things, to some of
which perhaps some one else may some time or other have
done something like ; I will mention nothing except what is
unprecedented, nothing except what would appear incredible,
if it were alleged against any other criminal,) he demanded
money from a Sicyonian magistrate. Do not let this be con
sidered a crime in Verres; others have done the same. When
he could not give it, he punished him ; a scandalous, but still
not an unheard-of act. Listen to the sort of punishment ;
you will ask, of what race of men you are to think him a
specimen. He ordered a fire to be made of green and damp
wood in a narrow place. There he left a free man, a noble in
his own country, an ally and friend of the Roman people,
tortured with smoke, half dead. After that, what statues,
what paintings he carried off from Achaia, I will not mention
at present. There is another part of my speech which I have
reserved for speaking of this covetousness of the man. You
have heard that at Athens a great sum of money was taken
out of the temple of Minerva. This was mentioned in the
trial of Cnseus Dolabella. Mentioned 1 the amount too was
stated. Of this design you wall find that Caius Verres was
not only a partaker, but was even the chief instigator. He
came to Delos. There from that most holy temple of Apollo
he privily took away by night the most beautiful and ancient
statues, and took care that they were all placed on board
170 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
his own transport. The next day, when the inhabitants of
Delos saw their temple plundered, they were very indignant.
For the holiness and antiquity of that temple is so great in
their eyes, that they believe that Apollo himself was born in
that place. However, they did not dare to say one word about
it, lest haply Dolabella himself might be concerned in the
business.
XVIII. Then on a sudden a very great tempest arose, 0
judges ; so that Dolabella could not only not depart, when
'he wished, but could scarcely stand in the city, such vast
waves were dashed on shore. Here that ship of that pirate,
loaded with the consecrated statues, being cast up and driven
ashore by the waves, is broken to pieces. Those statues of
Apollo were found on the shore ; by command of Dolabella
they are restored; the tempest is lulled; Dolabella departs
from Delos. I do not doubt, though there was no feel
ing of humanity ever in you, no regard for holiness, still
that now in your fear and danger thoughts of your wicked
actions occurred to you. Can there be any comfortable hope
of safety cherished by you, when you recollect how impious,
how wicked, how blasphemous has been your conduct towards
the immortal gods ] Did you dare to plunder the Delian
Apollo ? Did you dare to lay impious and sacrilegious hands
on that temple, so ancient, so venerated, so holy ? If you
were not in your childhood taught and trained to learn and
know what has been committed to writing, still would you
not afterwards, when you came into the very places them
selves, learn and believe what is handed down both by tradi
tion and by documents : That Latona, after a long wandering
and persecution, pregnant, and now near bringing forth, when
her time was come, fled to Delos, and there brought forth
Apollo and Diana ; from which belief of men that island is
considered sacred to those gods ; and such is and always has
been the influence of that religious belief, that not even the
Persians, when they waged war on all Greece, on gods and
men, and when they had put in with a fleet of a thousand
ships at Delos, attempted to violate, or even to touch any
thing. Did you, 0 most wicked, 0 most insane of men,
attempt to plunder this temple 1 Was any covetousness of
such power as to extinguish such solemn religious belief]
And if you did not think of this at that time, do you not
II. AGAINST VERRES. 171
recollect even now that there is no evil so great as not to have
been long since due to you for your wicked actions ?
XIX. But after he arrived in Asia, — why should I enume
rate the dinners, the suppers, the horses, and the presents
which marked that progress 1 I arn not going to say any
thing against Verres for everyday crimes. I say that he carried
off by force some most beautiful statues from Chios; also
from Erythrse; also from Halicarnassus. From Tenedos (I
pass over the money which he seized) he carried off Tenes
himself, Avho among the Tenedians is considered a most holy
god, who is said to have founded that city, after whose name
it is called Tenedos. This very Tenes, I say, most admirably
wrought, which you have seen ' before now in the assembly,
he carried off amid the great lamentations of the city. But
that storming of that most ancient and most noble temple of
the Samian Juno, how grievous was it to the Samians ! how
bitter to all Asia ! how notorious to all men ! how notorious
to every one of you ! And when ambassadors had come from
Samos into Asia to Caius Nero, to complain of this attack on
that temple, they received for answer, that complaints of that
sort, which concerned a lieutenant of the Roman people,
ought not to be brought before the prsetor, but must be carried
to Rome. What pictures did he carry off from thence ; what
statues! which I saw lately in his house, when I went thither
for the sake of sealing2 it up. And where are those statues
now, 0 Verres ? I mean those which I lately saw in your
house against every pillar, and also in every space between
two pillars, and actually arranged in the grove in the open
air ? Why were those things left at your house, as long as you
thought that another prsetor, with the other judges whom
you expected to have substituted in the room of these, was to
sit in judgment upon you? But when you saw that we preferred
suiting the convenience of our own witnesses rather than your
convenience as to time, you left not one statue ia your house
1 It was allowed to the aediles, and it was not uncommon for them,
to borrow of the cities of the allies celebrated and beautiful statues, to
adorn the shows in the games which they exhibited ; and afterwards
they were restored to their owners.
3 The custom was for the accuser to put a seal on the house and effects
of the man whom he was preparing to prosecute, in order that no evi
dence of the theft to be imputed might be removed by the removal of
Che stolen goods.
172 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
except two which were in the middle of it, and which were
themselves stolen from Samos. Did you not think that I
would summon your most intimate friends to give evidence of
this matter, who had often been at your house, and ask of
them whether they knew that statues were there which were
not?
XX. What did you think that these men would think of
you then, when they saw that you were no longer contending
against your accuser, but against the quaestor and the broker?1
On2 which matter you heard Charidemus of Chios give his
evidence at the former pleadings, that he, when he was
captain of a trireme, and was attending Verres on his de
parture from Asia, was with him at Samos, by command
of Dolabella, and that he then knew that the temple of Juno
had been plundered, and the town of Samos ; that afterwards
he had been put on his trial before the Chians, his fellow-
citizens, on the accusation of the Samians ; and that he had
been acquitted because he had made it plain that the allega
tions of the Samians concerned Verres, and not him. You
know that Aspendus is an ancient and noble town in Pam-
phylia, full of very fine statues. I do not say that one statue
or another was taken away from thence : this I say, that you,
0 Verres, left not one statue at Aspendus; that everything
from the temples and from all public places was openly seized
and carried away on wagons, the citizens all looking on.
And he even carried off that harp-player of Aspendus, of
whom you have often heard the saying, which is a proverb
among the Greeks, who used to say that he could sing every
thing within himself, and put him in the inmost part of his
own house, so as to appear to have surpassed the statue itself
in trickery. At Perga, we are aware that there is a very
ancient and very holy temple of Diana, That, too, I say, was
stripped and plundered by you ; and all the gold which there
was on Diana herself was taken off and carried away. What,
in the name of mischief, can such audacity and insanity
1 The quaestores serarii were sent to take possession in the name of
the people of the effects of a man who was convicted ; the sectores or
brokers attended them to appraise the goods seized.
2 In some editions the passage from "Quade re Charidemum," to
" Non ad se, pertinere," is transferred to the previous chapter, and in
serted after " deferri opertcre," but there is not the least reason for this
transposition, -which is contrary to the authority of every manuscript.
II. AGAINST VERRES. 173
mean ? In the very cities of our friends and allies, which you
visited under the pretext of your office as lieutenant, if you
had stormed them by force with an army, and had exercised
military rule there ; still, I think, the statues and ornaments
which you took away, you would have carried, not to your
own house, nor to the suburban villas of your friends, but to
Home for the public use.
XXI. Why should I speak of Marcus Marcellus, who took
Syracuse, that most beautiful city 1 why of Lucius Scipio, who
waged war in Asia, and conquered Autiochus, a most powerful
monarch ? why of Flaminius, who subdued Philip the king,
and Macedonia ? why of Lucius Paullus, who with his might
and valour conquered king Persea 1 why of Lucius Mummius,
who overthrew that most beautiful and elegant city Corinth,
full of all sorts of riches, and brought many cities of Achaia
and Boeotia under the empire and dominion of the Roman
people 1 — their houses, though they were rich in virtue
and honour, were empty of statues and paintings. But we
see the whole city, the temples of the gods, and all parts
of Italy, adorned with their gifts, and with memorials of them.
I am afraid all this may seem to some people too ancient, and
long ago obsolete. For at that time all men were so uniformly
disposed in the same manner, that this credit of eminent
virtue and incorruptibility appears to belong, not only to
those men, but also to those times. Publius Servilius, a
most illustrious man, who has performed the noblest exploits,
is present. He will deliver his opinion on your conduct. He,
by his power, had forces ; his wisdom and his valour took
Olympus, an ancient city, and one strengthened and em
bellished in every possible manner. I am bringing forward
a recent example of a most distinguished man. For Servilius,
as a general of the Roman people, took Olympus after you, as
lieutenant of the queestor in the same district, had taken care
to harass and plunder all the cities of our friends and allies
even when they were at peace. The things which you carried
off from the holiest temples with wickedness, and like a
robber, we cannot see, except in your own houses, or in those
of your friends. The statues and decorations which Publius
Servilius brought away from the cities of our enemies, taken
by his coui*age and valour, according to the laws of war and
his own rights as commander-in- chief, he brought home for
174 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
tlie Roman people ; he carried them in his triumph, and took
care that a description of them should be engraved on public
tablets and laid up in the treasury. You may learn from
public documents the industry of that most honourable man.
.Read — " The accounts delivered by Publius Servilius." You
see not only the number of the statues, but the size, the
figure, and the condition of each one among them acciirately
described in writing. Certainly, the delight arising from
virtue and from victoiy is much greater than that pleasure
which is derived from licentiousness and covetousness. I say
that Servilius took much more care to have the booty of the
Roman people noted and described, than you took to have
your plunder catalogued.
XXII. You will say that your statues and paintings were
also an ornament to the city and forum of the Roman people.
I recollect : I, together with the Roman people, saw the
forum and place for holding the assemblies adorned with
embellishments, in appearance indeed magnificent, but to
one's senses and thoughts bitter and melancholy. I saw
eveiything glittering with your thefts, with the plunder of
the provinces, with the spoils of our allies and friends. At
which time, 0 judges, that fellow conceived the hope of com
mitting his other crimes. For he saw that these men, who
wished to be called the masters of the courts of law, were
slaves to these desires. But the allies and foreign nations
then first abandoned the hope of saving any of their property
and fortunes, because, as it happened, there were at that time
very many ambassadors from Asia and Achaia at Rome, who
worshipped in the forum the images of the gods which had
been taken from their temples. And so also, when they recog
nised the other statues and ornaments, they wept, as they
beheld the different pieces of their property in different places.
And from all those men we then used to hear discourses of
this sort : — " That it was impossible for any one to doubt of
the ruin of our allies and friends, when men saw in the forum
of the Roman people, in which formerly those men used to- be
accused and condemned who had done any injury to the allies,
those things now openly placed which had been wickedly
seized and taken away from the allies." Here I do not expect
that he will deny that he has many statues, and countless
paintings. But, as I fancy, he is accustomed at times to say
II. AGAINST VEERES. 175
that lie purchased these things which he seized and stole ;
since indeed he was sent at the public expense, and with the
title of ambassador, into Achaia, Asia, and Pamphylia as a
purchaser of statues and paintings.
XXIII. I have all the accounts both of that fellow and of
his father, of money received, which I have most carefully
read and arranged ; those of your father, as long as he lived,
you own, as far as you say that you have made them up. For
in that man, 0 judges, you will find this new thing. We hear
that some men have never kept accounts ; which is a mis
taken opinion of men with respect to Antonius ; for he kept
them most carefully. But there may be men of that sort, but
they are by no means to be approved of. We hear that some
men have not kept them from the begirining, but after some
time have made them up ; there is a way of accounting for
this too. But this is unprecedented and absurd which this
man gave us for an answer, when we demanded his accounts
of him : " That he kept them up to the consulship of Marcus
Terentius and Caius Cassius ; but that, after that, he gave up
keeping them." In another place we will consider what sort
of a reply this is ; at present I am not concerned with it ; for
of the times about which I am at present occupied I have the
accounts, both youi's and those of your father. You cannot
deny that you carried off very many most beautiful statues,
very many admirable paintings. I wish you would deny it.
Show in your accounts or in those of your father that any one
of them was purchased, and you have gained your cause.
There is not even any possibility of your having bought those
two most beautiful statues which are now standing in your
court, and which stood for many years by the folding doors
of the Samian Juno ; these two, I say, which are now the*only
statues left in your house, which are waiting for the broker,
left alone and deserted by the other statues.
XXIV. But, I suppose in these matters alone had he this
irrepressible and unbridled covetousness ; his other desires
were restrained by some reason and moderation. To how
many noble virgins, to how many matrons do you think he
offered violence in that foul and obscene lieutenancy ? In
what town did he set his foot that he did not leave more
traces of his rapes and atrocities than he did of his arrival ?
But I will pass over everything which can be denied ; even
17G CICERO'S ORATIONS.
those things which are most certain and most evident I will
omit ; I will select one of his abominable deeds, in order
that I may the more easily at last arrive at Sicily, which has
imposed the burden of this business on me. There is a town
on the Hellespont, 0 judges, called Lampsacus, among the first
in the province of Asia for renown and for nobleness. And the
citizens themselves of Lampsacus are most especially kind
to all Roman citizens, and also are an especially quiet and
orderly race; almost beyond all the rest of the Greeks in
clined to the most perfect ease, rather than to any disorder or
tumult. It happened, when he had prevailed on Cnseus
Dolabella to send him to king Nicomedes and to king Sadala,
and when he had begged this expedition, more with a view to
his own gain than to any advantage for the republic, that in
that journey he came to Lampsacus, to the great misfortune
and almost ruin of the city. He is conducted to the house of
a man named Janitor as his host ; and his companions, also,
are billeted on other entertainers. As was the fellow's custom,
and as his lusts always instigating him to commit some
wickedness prompted him, he immediately gives a commission
to his companions, the most worthless and infamous of men,
to inquire and find out whether there is any virgin woman
worthy of his staying longer at Lampsacus for her sake.
XXV. He had a companion of the name of Rubrius, a man
made for such vices as his, who used to find out all these
things for him wherever he went, with wonderful address.
He brings him the following news, — that there was a man of
the name of Philodamus, in birth, in rank, in wealth, and in
reputation by far the first man among the citizens of Lamp
sacus ; that his daughter, who was living with her father
because she had not yet got a husband, was a woman of
extraordinary beauty, but was also considered exceedingly
modest and virtuous. The fellow, when he heard this, was
so inflamed with desire for that which he had not only not
seen himself, but which even he from whom he heard of it
had not seen himself, that he said he should like to go to
Philodamus immediately. Janitor, his host, who suspected
nothing, being afraid that he must have given him some
offence himself, endeavoured with all his might to detain him.
Verres, as he could not find any pretext for leaving his host's
house, began to pave his way for his meditated violence
II. AGAINST VERRES. 177
by other steps. He says that Rubrius, his most loved friend,
his assistant in all such matters, and the partner of his
counsels, is lodged "with but little comfort. He orders him
to be conducted to the house of Philodamus. But when this
is reported to Philodamus, although he was ignorant what
great misfortune was at that moment being contrived for him
and for his children, still he com.es to him, — represents to
him that that is not his office, — that when it was his turn to
receive guests, he was accustomed to receive the proctors and
consuls themselves, and not the attendants of lieutenants.
Verres, as he was hurried on by that one desire alone, dis
regarded all his demands and allegations, and ordered Rubrius
to be introduced by force into the house of a man who had a
right to refuse him admittance.
XXVI. On this, Philodamus, when he could not preserve
his rights, studied at least to preserve his courtesy and affa
bility. He who had always been considered most hospitable
and most friendly towards our people, did not like to appear
to have received even this fellow Rubrius into his house un
willingly ; he prepares a banquet magnificently and luxuri
ously, being, as he was, among the richest of all his fellow-
citizens; he begs Rubrius to invite whoever were agreeable to
himself; to leave, if he pleased, just room for himself alone.
He even sends his own son, a most excellent youth, out to.
one of his relations to supper. Rubrius invites Verres's com
panions ; Verres informs them all what there was to be done.
They come early. They sit down to supper. Conversation-
takes place among them, and an invitation is given to drink
in the Greek fashion. The host encourages them ; they de
mand wine in larger goblets ; the banquet proceeds with the
conversation and joy of every one. "When the business
appeared to Rubrius to have got warm enough, "I would know
of you, 0 Philodamus," says he, " why you do not bid your
daughter to be invited in hither to'usf The man, who was
both a most dignified man, and of mature age, and a parent,
was amazed at the speech of the rascal. Rubrius began tcx
urge it. Then he, in order to give some answer, said that it
was not the custom of the Greeks for women to sit down at
the banquets of men. On this some one else from some other
part of the room, cried out, " But this is not to be borne; let
the women be summoned." And immediately Rubrius orders-
N
178 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
his slaves to shut the door, and to stand at the doors them
selves. But when Philodamus perceived that what was in
tended and being prepared was, that violence should be
offered to his daughter, he calls his servants to him, he bids
them disregard him and defend his daughter, and orders some
one to run out and bear the news to his son of this over
powering domestic misfortune. Meantime an uproar arises
throughout the whole house; a fight takes place between the
slaves of Rubrius and his host. That noble and most honour
able man is buffeted about in his own house ; every one fights
for his own safety. At last Philodamus has a quantity of
boiling water thrown over him by Rubrius himself. When
the news of this is brought to the son, half dead with alarm
he instantly hastens home to bring aid to save the life of
his father and the modesty of his sister. All the citizens of
Lampsacus, with the same spirit, the moment they heard of it,
because both the worth of Philodamus and the enormity of
the injury excited them, assembled by night at his house. At
this time Cornelius, the lictor of Verres, who had been placed
with his slaves by Rubrius, as if on guard, for the purpose of
carrying off the woman, is slain ; some of the slaves are
wounded ; Rubrius himself is wounded in the crowd. Verres,
when he saw such an uproar excited by his own cupidity, be
gan to wish to escape some way or other if he could.
XXVII. The next morning men come early to the public
assembly ; they ask what is best to be done ; every one
delivered his own opinions to the people according as each
individual had the most weight. No one was found whose
opinion and speech was not to this purpose : — " That it need
not be feared, if the Lampsacenes had avenged that man's
atrocious wickedness by force and by the sword, that the
senate and Roman people would have thought they ought to
chastise their city. And if the lieutenants of the Roman
people were to establish this law with respect to the allies, and
to foreign nations, — that they were not to be allowed to pre
serve the chastity of their children unpolluted by their lusts,
it was better to endure anything rather than to live in a state
of such violence and bitterness." As all were of this opinion,
and as every one spoke in this tenor, as his own feelings and
indignation prompted each individual, all immediately pro
ceeded towards the house where Verres was staying. They
11. AGAINST YKKRES. 179
began to beat the door with stones, to attack it with weapons,
to surround it with wood and faggots, and to apply fire to it.
Then the Roman citizens who were dwelling as traders at
Lampsacus run together to the spot ; they entreat the citizens
of Lampsacus to allow the name of the lieutenancy to have
more weight with them than the insult of the lieutenant ;
they say that they were well aware that he was an infamous
and wicked man, but as he had not accomplished what he
had attempted, and as he was not going to be at Lampsacus
any longer, their error in sparing a wicked man would be less
than that of not sparing a lieutenant. And so that fellow,
far more wicked and infamous than even the notorious
Hadrian,1 was a good deal more fortunate. He, because
Roman citizens could not tolerate his avarice, was burnt alive
at Utica in his own house ; and that was thought to have
happened to him so deservedly, that all men rejoiced, and no
punishment was inflicted for the deed. This man, scorched
indeed though he was by the fire made by our allies, yet es
caped from those flames and that danger ; and has not even
yet been able to imagine what he had done, or what had hap
pened to bring him into such gr«at danger. For he cannot
say : — " When I was trying to put down a sedition, when I
was ordering corn, when I was collecting money for the
soldiers, when in short I was doing something or other for the
sake of the republic, because I gave some strict order, because
I punished some one, because I threatened some one, all this
happened." Even if he were to say so, still he ought not to
be pardoned, if he seemed to have been brought into such
great- danger through issuing too savage commands to our
allies.
XXVIII. Now when he neither dares himself to allege any
such cause for the tumult as being true, nor even to invent
such a falsehood, but when a most temperate man of his own
order, who at that time was in attendance on Caius Nero,
Publius Tettius, says that he too heard this same account at
Lampsacus, (a man most accomplished in everything, Caius
Varro, who was at that time in Asia as military tribune, says
that he heard this very same story from Philodamus,) can you
doubt that fortune was willing, not so much to save him from
1 This had happened about twelve years before, in the consulship of
the younsrer Marius and Carbo, A. u. o. 672.
180 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
that danger, as to reserve him for your judgment? Unless,
indeed, he will say, as indeed Hortensius did say, interrupting
Tettius while he was giving his evidence in the former plead
ing (at which time indeed he gave plenty of proof that, if
there were anything which he could say, he could not keep
silence; so that we may all feel sure that, while he was silent
in the other matters that were alleged, he was so because he
had nothing to say); he at that time said this, that Philo-
damus and his son had been condemned by Caius Nero.
About which, not to make a long speech, I will merely say
that Nero and his bench of judges came to that decision on
the ground that it was plain that Cornelius, his lictor, had
been slain, and that they thought it was not right that any one,
even while avenging his own injuries, should have the power to
kill a man. And as to this I see that you were not by Nero's
sentence acquitted of atrocity, but that they were convicted
of murder. And yet what sort of a conviction was that?
Listen, I entreat you, 0 judges, and do sometimes pity our
allies, and show that they ought to have, and that they have,
some protection in your integrity.
XXIX. Because the man appeared to all Asia to have been
lawfully slain, being in name indeed his lictor, but in reality
the minister of his most profligate desires, Verres feared that
Philodamus would be acquitted by the sentence of Nero.
He begs and entreats Dolabella to leave his own province, to
go to Nero ; he shows that he himself cannot be safe if Philo
damus be allowed to live and at any time to come to Rome.
Dolabella was moved; he did what many blamed, in leaving
his army, his province, and the war, and in going into Asia,
into the province of another magistrate, for the sake of a
most worthless man. After he came to Nero, he urged him
to take cognisance of the cause of Philodamus. He canie
himself to sit on the bench, and to be the first to deliver1" his
opinion. He had brought with him also his prefects, and his
military tribunes, all of whom Nero invited to take their
places on the bench. On that bench also was that most just
judge Verres himself. There were some Romans also, creditors
of some of the Greeks, to whom the favour of any lieutenant,
be he ever so infamous, is of the greatest influence in enabling
them to get in their money. The unhappy prisoner could
find no one to defend him; for what citizen was there who
II. AGAINST VEREES. 181
was not under the influence of Dolabella ? what Greek who
was not afraid of his power and authority? And then is
assigned as the accuser a Roman citizen, one of the creditors
of the Lampsacenes; and if he would only say what that
fellow ordered him to say, he was to be enabled to compel
payment of his money from the people, by the aid of that
same Verres's lictors. When all these things were conducted
with such zeal, and with such resources ; when many were
accusing that unhappy man, and no one was defending him ;
and when Dolabella, with his prefects, was taking an eager
part on the bench ; when Verres kept saying that his fortunes
were at stake — when he also gave his evidence — when he also
was sitting on the bench — when he also had provided the
accuser ; when all this was done, and when it was clear that
the man had been slain, still, so great was the weight which
the consideration of that fellow's injury had, so great was his
iniquity thought, that the case of Philodamus was adjourned
for further inquiry.
XXX. Why need I now speak of the energy of Cnocus
Dolabella at the second hearing of the cause, — of his tears,
of his agitation of body and mind? Why need I describe
the mind of Caius Nero, — a most virtuous and innocent man,
but still on some occasions too timid and low-spirited? — who
in that emergency had no idea what to do, unless, perchance
(as every one wished him to do), to settle the matter without
the intervention of Verres and Dolabella. Whatever had
been done without their intervention all men would approve ;
but, as it was, the sentence which was given was thought not
to have been pronounced judicially by Nero, but to have been
extorted by Dolabella. For Philodamus and his son are con
victed by a few votes: Dolabella is present; urges and presses
Nero to have them executed as speedily as possible, in order
that as few as may be may hear of that man's nefarious
wickedness. There is exhibited in the market-place of Lao-
dicea a spectacle bitter, and miserable, and grievous to the
whole province of Asia — an aged parent led forth to punish
ment, and on the other side a son; the one because he had
defended the chastity of his children, the other because he
had defended the life of his father and the fair fame of his
sister. Each was weeping, — the father, not for his own exe
cution, but for that of his son ; the son for that of his father.
182 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
How many tears do you think that Nero himself shed? How
great do you think was the weeping of all Asia? How great
the groans and lamentations of the citizens of Lampsacus,
that innocent men, nobles, allies and friends of the Roman
people, should be put to death by public execution, on ac
count of the unprecedented wickedness and impious desires
of one most profligate man'? After this, 0 Dolabella, no one
can pity either you or your children, whom you have left
miserable, in beggary and solitude. Was Verres so dear to
you, that you should wish the disappointment of his lust to
be expiated by the blood of innocent men1? Did you leave
your army and the enemy, in order by your own power and
cruelty to diminish the dangers of that most wicked man?
For, had you expected him to be an everlasting friend to you,
because you had appointed him to act as your qusestor? Did
you not know, that Cnaeus Carbo, the consul whose real
qua3stor he had been, had not only been deserted by him, but
had also been deprived of his resources and his money, and
nefariously attacked and betrayed by him ? Therefore, you
too experienced his perfidy when he joined your enemies, —
when he, himself a most guilty man, gave most damaging
evidence against you — when he refused to give in his accounts
to the treasury unless you were condemned.1
XXXI. Are your lusts, 0 Verres, to be so atrocious, that
the provinces of the Roman people, that foreign nations, can
not limit and cannot endure them? Unless whatever you
see, whatever you hear, whatever you desire, whatever you
think of, is in a moment to be subservient to your nod, is at
once to obey your lust and desire, are men to be sent into
people's houses? are the houses to be stormed? Are cities —
not only the cities of enemies now reduced to peace — but are
the cities of our allies and friends to be forced to have recourse
to violence and to arms, in order to be able to repel from
themselves and from their children the wickedness and lust of
a lieutenant of the Roman people? For I ask of you, were
you besieged at Lampsacus? Did that multitude begin to
burn the house in which you were staying ? Did the citizens
' Dolabella was governor of Cilicia at the time Verres was acting as
his lieutenant and proqusestor. On his return from his government he
was prosecuted by Scaurus for corruption, and was condemned mainly
through the evidence of Verres.
II. AGAINST VERRES. 183
of Lampsacus wish to burn a lieutenant of the Roman people-
alive ? You cannot deny it ; for I have your own evidence
which you gave before Nero, — I have the letters which you
sent to him. Recite the passage from his evidence.
\_The. evidence of Caius Verres against Artemidorus is read.~\
Recite the passages out of Verres's letters to Nero.
[Passages from the letters of Verres to Nero are read.~\
" Not long afterwards, they came into the house." Was the
city of Lampsacus endeavouring to make war on the Roman
people 1 Did it wish to revolt from our dominion — to cast off
the name of allies of Rome1? For I see, and, from those things
which I have read and heard, I am sure, that, if in any city a
lieutenant of the Roman people has been, not only besieged,
not only attacked with fire and sword, by violence, and by
armed forces, but even to some extent actually injured, unless
satisfaction be publicly made for the insult, war is invariably
declared and waged against that city. What, then, was the
cause why the whole city of the Lampsacenes ran, as you
write yourself, from the assembly to your house1? For neither
in the letters which you sent to Nero, nor in your evidence,
do you mention any reason for so important a disturbance.
You say that you were besieged, that fire was applied to your
house, that faggots were put round it; you say that your
lictor was slain ; you say that you did not dare appear in the
public streets; but the cause of all this alarm you conceal.
For if Rubrius had done any injury to any one on his own
account, and not at your instigation and for the gratification
of your desires, they would rather have come to you to com
plain of the injury done by your companion, than have come
to besiege you. As, therefore, he himself has concealed what
the cause of that disturbance was, and as the witnesses pro
duced by us have related it, do not both their evidence and
his own continued silence prove the reason to be that which
we have alleged ?
XXXII. Will you then spare this man, 0 judges ? whose
offences are so great that they whom he injured could neither
wait for the legitimate time to take their revenge, nor restrain
to a future time the violence of their indignation. You were
besieged ? By whom 1 By the citizens of Lampsacus — bar
barous men, I suppose, or, at all events, men who despised
the name of the Roman people. Sav rather, men, by nature;
184 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
by custom, and by education most gentle ; moreover, by con
dition, allies of the Roman people, by fortune our subjects, by
inclination our suppliants — so that it is evident to all men,
that unless the bitterness of the injury and the enormity of
the wickedness had been such that the Lampsacenes thought
it better to die than to endure it, they never would have
advanced to such a pitch as to be more influenced by hatred
of your lust — than by fear of your office as lieutenant. Do
not, in the name of the immortal gods, I entreat you — do
not compel the allies and foreign nations to have recourse to
such a refuge as that ; and they must of necessity have recourse
to it, unless you chastise such crimes. Nothing would ever
have softened the citizens of Lampsacus towards him, except
their believing that he would be punished at Rome. Although
they had sustained such an injury that they could not suf
ficiently avenge it by any law in the world, yet they would
have preferred to submit their griefs to our laws and tribunals,
rather than to give way to their own feelings of indignation.
You, when you have been besieged by so illustrious a city on
account of your own wickedness and crime — when you have
compelled men, miserable and maddened by calamity, as if in
despair of our laws and tribunals, to fly to violence, to com
bat, and to arms — when you have shown yourself in the towns
and cities of our friends, not as a lieutenant of the Roman
people, but as a lustful and inhuman tyrant — when among
foreign nations you have injured the reputation of our domi
nion and our name by your infamy and your crimes — when
you have with difficulty saved yourself from the sword of the
friends of the Roman people, and escaped from the fire of
its allies, do you think you will find an asylum here 1 You
are mistaken — they allowed you to escape alive that you
might fall into our power here, not that you might find rest
here.
XXXIII. And you say that a judicial decision was come to
that you were injuriously besieged for no reason at Lampsacus,
because Philodamus and his sou were condemned. What if
I show, if I make it evident, by the evidence of a worthless
man indeed, but still a competent witness in this matter, — by
the evidence of you yourself, — that you yourself transferred
the reason of this siege laid to you, and the blame of it, to
others'? and that those whom you had accused were not
II. AGAINST VEBRE3. 185
punished 1 Then the decision of Nero will do you but little
good. Recite the letters which he sent to Nero.
[The letter of Gains Verres to Nero is read.~\
" Themistagoras and Thessalus." . . . You write that Themis-
tagoras and Thessalus stirred up the people. What people ?
They who besieged you; who endeavoured to burn you alive.
Where do you prosecute them? Where do you accuse them?
Where do you defend the name and rights of a lieutenant?
Will you say that that was settled by the trial of Philodamus?
Let me have the evidence of Verres himself. Let us see what
that fellow said on his oath. Recite it. " Being asked by the
accuser, he answered that he was not prosecuting for that in
this trial, that he intended to prosecute for that another time."
How, then, does Nero's decision profit you ? — how does the
conviction of Philodamus 1 Though you, a lieutenant, had
been besieged, and when, as you yourself write to Nero, a
notorious injury had been done to the Roman people, and to
the common cause of all lieutenants, you did not prosecute.
You said that you intended to prosecute at some other time.
When was that time ? When have you prosecuted ? Why
have you taken so much from the rights of a lieutenant's
rank ? Why have you abandoned and betrayed the cause of
the Roman people ? Why have you passed over your own
injuries, involved as they were in the public injury? Ought
you not to have brought the cause before the senate? to have
complained of such atrocious injuries ? to have taken care
that those men who had excited the populace should be sum
moned by the letters of the consuls ? Lately, when Marcus
Aurelius Scaurus made the demand, because he said that he as
qutestor had been prevented by force at Ephesus from taking
his servant out of the temple of Diana, who had taken refuge
in that asylum, Pericles, an Ephesian, a most noble man, was
summoned to Rome, because he was accused of having been
the author of that wrong. If you had stated to the senate
that you, a lieutenant, had been so treated at Lampsacus,
that your companions were wounded, your lictor slain, you
yourself surrounded and nearly burnt, and that the ring
leaders and principal actors and chiefs in that transaction
were Themistagoras and Thessalus, who, you write, were so,
who would not have been moved ? Who would not have
thought that he was taking care of himself in chastising the
186 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
injury which had been done to you 1 Who would not have
thought that not only your cause but that the common safety
was at stake in that matter ? In truth the name of lieute
nant ] ought to be such as to pass in safety not only among
the laws of allies, but even amid the arms of enemies.
This crime committed at Lampsacus is very great ; a
crime of lust and of the most infamous desires. Listen now
to a tale of avarice, but little less iniquitous of its sort. He
demanded of the Milesians a ship to attend him to Myndus
as a guard. They immediately gave him a light vessel, a
beautiful one of its class, splendidly adorned and armed.
With this guard he went to Myndus. For, as to the wool
being public property which he carried off from the Milesians,
— as for his extravagance on his arrival, — as for his insults and
injuries offered to the Milesian magistrates, although they
might be stated not only truly, but also with vehemence and
with indignation, still I shall pass them all over, and reserve
them for another time to be proved by evidence. At present
listen to this which cannot possibly be suppressed, and at the
same time cannot be mentioned with proper dignity. He
orders the soldiers and the crew to return from Myndus to
Miletus on foot ; he himself sold that beautiful light vessel,
picked out of the ten ships of the Milesians, to Lucius
Magius and Lucius Eabius, who were living at Myndus.
These are the men whom the senate lately voted should be
considered in the number of enemies. In this vessel they
sailed to all the enemies of the Roman people, from Dianium,
which is in Spain, to Senope, which is in Pontus. 0 ye im
mortal gods ! the incredible avarice, the unheard-of audacity
of such a proceeding ! Did you dare to sell a ship of the
Roman fleet, which the city of Miletus had assigned to you to
attend upon you '? If the magnitude of the crime, if the
opinion of men, had no influence on you, did this, too, never
occur to you, — that so illustrious and so noble a city would
be a witness against you of this most wicked theft, or rather
of this most abominable robbery 1 Or because at that time
1 Cicero here, one may almost say, plays on the meanings of the word
legatus, which means not only a lieutenant, but also an ambassador.
The persons of ambassadors have always, by the laws of nation?, been
considered to be sacred ; but Verres was not an ambassador, but a
lieutenant.
II. AGAINST VERRES. 187
Cnseus Dolabella attempted, at your request, to punish the
man who had been in command of that vessel, and who had
reported to the Milesians what had been done, and had
ordered his report, which according to their laws had been
inserted in the public registers, to be erased, did you, on that
account, fancy that you had escaped from that accusation 1
XXXV. That opinion of yours has much deceived you, and
on many occasions. For you have always fancied, and espe
cially in Sicily, that you had taken sufficient precautions for
your defence, when you had either forbidden anything to be
mentioned in the public records, or had compelled that which
had been so mentioned to be erased. How vain that step is,
although in the former pleading you learnt it in the instance
of many cities of Sicily, yet you may learn it again in the
case of this city. The citizens are, indeed, obedient to the
command, as long as they are present who give the com
mand. As soon as they are gone, they not only set down
that which they have been forbidden to set down, but they
also write down the reason why it was not entered in the
public records at the time. Those documents remain at
Miletus, and will remain as long as that city lasts. For the
Milesian people had built ten ships by command of Lucius
Marcus out of the taxes imposed by the Roman people, as
the other cities of Asia had done, each in proportion to its
amount of taxation. Wherefore they entered on their public
records, that one of the ten had been lost, not by the sudden
attack of pirates, but by the robbery of a lieutenant, — not by
the violence of a storm, but by this horrible tempest which
fell upon the allies. There are at Rome Milesian ambas
sadors, most noble men and the chief men of the city, who,
although they are waiting with apprehension for the month
of February1 and the time of the consuls elect, yet they
not only do not dare to deny such an atrocious action when
they are asked about it, but they cannot forbear speaking of
it unasked if they are present. They will tell you, I say,
being induced by regard to religion, and by their fear of their
laws at home, what has become of that vessel. They will
declare to you that Caius Verres has behaved himself like
1 It was in the month of February that the senate was used to give
audience to the deputies from the provinces ; and the consuls elect,, as
has been said befure, were notoriously in the interest of Verres.
188 CICERO S ORATIONS.
a most infamous pirate in regard to that fleet which was built
against pirates.
XXXVI. When Caius Malleolus, the qusestor of Dolabella,
had been slain, he thought that two inheritances had come to
him ; one, that of his quaestorian. office, for he was imme
diately desired by Dolabella to be his proqusestor ; the other,
of a guardianship, for as he was appointed guardian of the
young Malleolus, he immediately invaded his property. For
Malleolus had started for his province so splendidly equipped
that he left actually nothing behind him at home. Besides,
he had put out a great deal of money among the provincials,
and had taken bills from them. He had taken with him
a great quantity of admirably embossed silver plate. For he,
too, was a companion of that fellow Verres in that disease
and in that covetousness ; and so he left behind him at his
death a great quantity of silver plate, a great household of
slaves, many workmen, many beautiful youths. That fellow
seized all the plate that took his fancy ; carried off all the
slaves he chose ; carried off the wines and all the other
things which are procured most easily in Asia, which he had
left behind : the rest he sold, and took the money himself.
Though it was plain that he had received two millions five
hundred thousand sesterces, when he returned to Rome, he
rendered no account to his ward, none to his ward's mother,
none to his fellow-guardians ; though he had the servants of
his ward, who were workmen, at home, and beautiful and
accomplished slaves about him, he said that they were his
own, — that he had bought them. When the mother and
grandmother of the boy repeatedly asked him if he would
neither restore the money nor render an account, at least
to say how much money of Malleolus's he had received, being
wearied with their importunities, at last he said, a million of
sesterces. Then on the last line of his accounts, he put in a
name at the bottom by a most shameless erasure ; he put
down that he had paid to Chrysogonus, a slave, six hundred
thousand sesterces which he had received for his ward Mal
leolus. How out of a million they became six hundred
thousand ; how the six hundred thousand tallied so exactly
with other accounts, — that of the money belonging to Cneeus
Carbo there was also a remainder of six hundred thousand
sesterces ; and how it was that they were put down as paid to
II. AGAINST VERRES. 189
Chrysogonus ; why that name occurred on the bottom line of
the page, and after an erasure, you •will judge. Yet, though
he had entered in his accounts six hundred thousand sesterces
as having been received, he has never paid over fifty thousand.
Of the slaves, since he has been prosecuted in this manner,
some have been restored, some are detained even now. All
the gains which they had made, and all their substitutes1
are detained.
XXXVII. This is that fellow's splendid guardianship. See
to whom you are entrusting your children ! Behold how
great is the recollection of a dead companion ! Behold how
great is the fear of the opinion of the living ! When all Asia
had given herself up to you to be harassed and plundered,
when all Pamphylia was placed at your mercy to be pillaged,
were you not content with this rich booty? Could you not
keep your hands off your guardianship, off your ward, off the
son of your comrade 1 It is not now the Sicilians ; they are
now a set of ploughmen, as you are constantly saying, who
are hemming you in. It is not the men who have been ex
cited against you and rendered hostile to you by your own
decrees and edicts. Malleolus is brought forward by me and
his mother and his grandmother, who, unfortunate, and weep
ing, say that their boy has been stripped by you of his father's
property. What are you waiting for1? till poor Malleolus
rises from the shades below, and demands of you an account
of your discharge of the duties of a guardian, of a comrade,
of an intimate friend1? Fancy that he is present himself.
0 most avaricious and most licentious man, restore the pro
perty of your comrade to his son ; if not all you have robbed
him of, at least that which you have confessed that you re
ceived. Why do you compel the son of your comrade to
utter his first words in the forum with the voice of indigna-
1 "A3 slaves often acted as factors or agents for their masters in mat
ters of business, and, as such, were often entrusted with property to a
large amount, there arose a practice of allowing the slave to consider
part of the gains as his own ; this was his peculium .... According to
strict law the peculium was the property of the master ; but according-
to usage it was the property of the slave .... Sometimes a slave would
have another slave under him, who had a peculium with respect to the
first slave, just as the first slave had a peculium with respect to his
master. On this practice was founded the distinction between Servi
Ordinary, and Vicarii." — Smith, Diet. Ant. pp. 869, 870. v. Servus.
190 CICEBO'S ORATIONS.
tion and complaint ? Why do you compel the wife of your
comrade, the mother-in-law of your comrade, in short, the
whole family of your dead comrade, to bear evidence against
you1? Why do you compel most modest and admirable women
to come against their wont and against their will into so great
an assembly of men ] Recite the evidence of them all.
[The evidence of the mother and grandmother is read.]
XXXVIII. But how he as proqusestor harassed the re
public of the Milyades, how he oppressed Lyria, Pamphylia,
Piscidia, and all Phrygia, in his levying corn from them, and
valuing it according to that valuation of his, which he then
devised for the first time, it is not nesessary for me now to
relate ; know this much, that these articles (and all such
matters were transacted through his instrumentality, while
he levied on the cities corn, hides, haircloth, sacks, but did
not receive the goods but exacted money instead of them), —
for these articles alone damages were laid in the action against
Dolabella, at three millions of sesterces. And all these things,
even if they were done with the consent of Dolabella, were
yet all accomplished through the instrumentality of that man.
I will pause on one article, for many are of the same sort.
Recite. " Money received from the actions against Cnscus
Dolabella, prsetor of the Roman people, that which was re
ceived from the State of the Milyades " I say that
you collected this money, that you made this valuation, that
the money was paid to you; and I prove that you went
through every part of the province with the same violence
and injustice, when you were collecting most enormous sums,
like some disastrous tempest or pestilence. Therefore Marcus
Scaurus, who accused Cneeus Dolabella, held him under his
power and in subjection. Being a young man, when in pro
secuting his inquiries he ascertained the numerous robberies
and iniquities of that man, he acted skilfully and warily. He
showed him a huge volume full of his exploits ; he got from
the fellow all he wanted against Dolabella. He brought him
forward as a witness ; the fellow said everything which he
thought the accuser wished him to say. And of that class of
witnesses, men who were accomplices in his robberies, I might
have had a great plenty if I had chosen to employ them ;
who offered of their own accord to go wherever I chose, in
order to deliver themselves from the danger of actions, and
II. AGAIXST VERRES. 191
from a connexion with his crimes. I rejected the voluntary
offers of all of them. There was not only no room for a
traitor, there was none even for a deserter in my camp. Per
haps they are to be considered better accusers than I, who do
all these things; but I wish the defender of others to be
praised in my person, not the accuser. He does not dare
bring in his accounts to the treasury before Dolabella is con
demned. He prevails on the senate to grant him an adjourn
ment ; because he said that his account-books had been sealed
up by the accusers of Dolabella; just as if he had not the
power of copying them. This man is the only man who never
rendere accounts to the treasury.
XXXIX. You have heard the accounts of his quaestorship
rendered in three lines ; but no accounts of his lieutenancy,
till he was condemned and banished who alone could detect
any error in them. The accounts of his prsetorship, which,
according to the decree of the senate, he ought to have ren
dered immediately on leaving office, he has not rendered to
this very clay. He said that he was waiting for the quaestors
to appear in the senate ; just as if a praetor could not give in
his accounts without the quaestor, in the same way as the
qusestor does without the praetor, (as you did, Hortensius, and
as all have done.) He said that Dolabella obtained the same
permission. The omen pleased the conscript fathers rather
than the excuse ; they admitted it. But now the quaestors
have arrived some time. Why have you not rendered them
now 1 Among the accounts of that infamous lieutenancy and
pro-quaestorship of yours, those items occur which are neces
sarily set down also in the accounts of Dolabella. (An extract
is read of the account of the damages assessed against Dola
bella, praetor of the Roman people, for money received.)1 The
1 Hottomann makes sure that there is some corruption of the MS.
here, and Grsevius agrees with him. " The whole passage is very obscure,
and the more difficult because we are not acquainted with the forms of
proceeding which were followed against magistrates convicted of extor
tion. It is not clear, as far as appears from Cicero's speech, that, though
there was a discrepancy between the accounts of Verrea and that of
Dolabella, the fault was necessarily in the accounts of Verres ; especially
as Dolabella had been justly convicted of extortion and malversation
already. Undoubtedly Cicero produced witnesses who assisted to put
the case in the point of view in which he wished it to be looked at." —
Desmenorius.
192 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
sum which Dolabella entered to Verres as having been received
from him, is less than the sum which Verres has entered as
having been paid to him by four hundred and thirty-five thou
sand sesterces. The sum which Dolabella made out that
Verres received less than he has put down in his account-
books, is two hundred and thirty-two thousand sesterces.
Dolabella also made out that on account of corn he had
received one million and eight hundred thousand sesterces j
as to which you, 0 most incorruptible man, had quite a differ
ent entry in your account-books. Hence it is that those
extraordinary gains of yours have accumulated, which we are
examining into without any guide, article by article as we
can ; — hence the account with Quintus and Cnseus Postumus
Curtius, made up of many items; of which that fellow has
not one in his account-books ; — hence the fourteen hundred
thousand sesterces paid to Publius Tadius at Athens, as I will
prove by witnesses ; — hence the pnetorship, openly purchased ;
unless indeed that also is doubtful, how that man became
praetor. Oh, he was a man, forsooth, of tried industry and
energy, or else of a splendid reputation for economy, or per
haps, which is however of the least importance, for his con
stant attendance at our assemblies ; — a man who had lived
before his qupcstorship with prostitutes and pimps ; who had
passed his qurcstorship you yourselves know how; — who, since
that infamous qusestorship, has scarcely been three days in
Rome ; who, while absent, has not been out of sight, but has
been the common topic of conversation for every one on
account of his countless iniquities. He, on a sudden, the
moment he came to Rome, is made prsetor for nothing !
Besides that, other money was paid to buy off accusations,
To whom it was paid is, I think, nothing to me ; nothing to
the matter in hand. That it was paid was at the time noto
rious to every one while the occurrence was recent. 0 you
most foolish, most senseless man, when you were making up
your accounts, and when you wanted to shirk out of the
charge of having made extraordinary gains, did you think
that you would escape sufficiently from all suspicion, if when
you lent men money you did not enter any sums as given to
them, and put down no such item at all in your account-
books, while the Curtii were giving you credit in their books
for all that had been received? What good did it do you that
II. AGAINST VERRES. 193
you had not put down what was paid to them ? Did you
think you were going to try your cause by the production of
no other account-books than your own 1
XL. However, let us now come to that splendid praetorship,
and to those crimes which are better known to those who are
here present, than even to us who come prepared to speak
after long consideration. In dealing with which, I do not
doubt that I may not be able to avoid and escape from some
blame on the ground of negligence. For many will say, " He
said nothing of the transaction at which I was present ; he
never touched upon that injury which wras done to me, or to
my friend, transactions at which I was present." To all those
who are acquainted with the wrongs this man has done — that
is, to the whole Roman people — I earnestly wish to make this
excuse, that it will not be out of carelessness that I shall pass
over many things, but because I wish to reserve some points
till I produce the witnesses, and because I think it necessary
to omit some altogether with a view to brevity, and to the
time my speech must take. I will confess too, though against
iny will, that, as he never allowed any moment of time to
pass free from crime, I have not been able to ascertain fully
every iniquity which has been committed by him. Therefore
I beg you to listen to me with respect to the crimes of his
prsetorship, expecting only to hear those mentioned, both in
the matters of deciding law-suits and of insisting on the
repair of public buildings, which are thoroughly worthy of a
criminal whom it is not worth while to accuse of any small
or ordinary offences. For when he was made prsetor, leaving
the house of Chelidon after having taken the auspices, he
drew the lot of the city province, more in accordance with
his own inclination and that of Chelidon, than with the wish
of the Roman people. And observe how he behaved at the
very outset, — what his intentions were as shown1 in his first
edict.
XLI. Publius Annius Asellus died while Caius Sacerdos was
prsetor. As he had an only daughter, and as he was not
1 "After the praetors were appointed, before they entered on the dis
charge of their duties as judges, they were in the habit of issuing an
edict, setting forth the principles which they intended should govern
their decisions ; and they used to do this in the public assembly, after
they had taken the oath to observe the laws."— Hottoman.
o
194 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
included in the census,1 lie did what nature prompted, and
what no law forbade, — he appointed his daughter heiress of all
his property. His daughter was his heiress. Everything
made for the orphan ; the equity of the law, the wish of her
father, the edicts of the praetors, the usage of the law which
existed at the time that Asellus died. That fellow, being prsstor
elect, (whether being instigated by others, or being tempted
by circumstances, or whether, from the instinctive sagacity
which he has in such matters, he came of his own accord to
this rascality, without any prompter, without any informer, I
know not ; you only know the audacity and insanity of the
man,) appeals to Lucius Annius as the heir, (who indeed was
appointed heir after the daughter,) for I cannot be persuaded
that Verres wa: appealed to by him ; he says that he can give
him the inheritance by an edict ; he instructs the man in what
can be done. To the one the property appeared desirable, the
other thought that he could sell it. Verres, although he is
of singular audacity, still sent privately to the young girl's
mother ; he preferred taking money for not issuing any new
edict, to interposing so shameful and inhuman a decree. Her
guardians, if they gave money to the prsetor in the name of
their ward, especially if it were a large sum, did not see ho\v
they could enter it in their accounts; did not see how they could
" By the Lex Voconia it was enacted, that no person who should be
included in the census, after the census of that year, B. o. 169, should
make any female his heir. Cicero does not state that the Lex fixed the
census at any sum ; but it appears from other writers that a woman
could not be made hseres by any person who was rated in the census at
a hundred thousand sesterces. The Lex only applied to wills, and there
fore a daughter or other female could inherit ab intestate to any amount.
The Vestal virgins could make women their hoeredes in all cases, which
was the only exception to the provisions of the law. If the terms of
the law are correctly reported by Cicero, a person who was not census
might make a woman his hceres whatever was the amount of his pro
perty. Still there is a difficulty about the meaning of census. If it is
taken to mean that a person whose property was above a hundred thou
sand sesterces, and who was not included in the census, could dispose of
his property as he pleased by will, the purpose of the law would be
frustrated : and further, the " not being included in the census " (neque
census esset) seems rather vague. Another provision of the law, men
tioned by Cicero, forbade a person who was census to give more in
amount in the form of a legacy or a donalio mortis catisd to any person
tban the hreres or haeredes should take." — Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 1059, v.
Voconia Lex, with especial reference to this passage.
II. AGAINST VERRES. 195
give it except at their own risk ; and at the same time they did
not believe that he would be so wicked. Being often applied to,
they refused. I pray you, take notice, how equitable a decree
he issued at the will of the man to whom he was giving the
inheritance of which the children were robbed. " As I under
stand that the Lex Voconia . . . ." Who would ever believe
that Verres would be an adversary of women 1 or did he do
something contrary to the interests of women, in order that
the whole edict might not appear to have been drawn up at
the will of Chelidon. He wishes, he says, to oppose the
covetousness of men. Oh, certainly. Who, not only in
the present age, but even in the times of our ancestors, was
ever so far removed from covetousness ? Recite what comes
next, I beg ; for the gravity of the man, his knowledge of the
law, and his authority delight me. " Who, since the censor
ship of Aulus Postumius and Quintus Fulvixis, has made, or
shall have made . . . ." Has made, or shall have made !
who ever issued an edict in such a manner ? Who ever pro
posed by an edict any penalty or danger for an act which
could not be provided for otherwise either before the edict or
after the edict 1
XLII. Publius Annius had made his will in accordance
with law, with the statutes, with the authority of all who were
consulted; a will neither improper, nor made in disregard of
any duty, nor contraiy to human nature. But even if he had
made such a will as that, still, after his death no new law
ought to have been enacted which should have any effect on
his will. I suppose the Voconian law pleased you greatly ?
You should have imitated Quintus Voconius himself, who did
not by his law take away her inheritance from any female
whether virgin or matron, but established a law for the future,
that no one who after the year of the existing censors should
be enrolled in the census, should make either virgin or matron
his heir. In the Voconian law, there is no " has made or
shall have made." Nor in any law is time past ever impli
cated in blame, except in cases which are of their own nature
wicked and nefarious, so that, even if there were no law,
they would be strenuously to be avoided. And in these cases
we see that many things are established by law in such a way
that things done previously cannot be called in question — the
Cornelian law the law about testaments, the law about money,
196 CICERO'S ORATIONS,
and many others, in which no new law is established in the
nation, but it is established that what has always been an evil
action shall be liable to public prosecution up to a certain
time. But if any one establishes any new regulation on any
points of civil law, does he allow everything which has been
previously done to remain unaltered ? Look at the Atinian
law, at the Furian law, at the Voconian law itself, as I said
before ; in short, at every law on the subject of civil rights;
you will find in all of them that regulations are established
which are only to come into operation after the passing of the
law. Those who attribute the greatest importance to the
edict, say that the edict of the prsetor is an annual law. You
embrace more in an edict than you can in a law. If the first
of January puts an end to the edict of the prsetor, why does
not the edict have its birth also on the first of January ? Or,
is it the case that no one can advance forward by his edict
into the year when another man is to be prsetor, but that he
may retire back into the year when another man has been
praetor ? And if you had published this edict for the sake of
right, and not for the sake of one man, you would have com
posed it more carefully.
XLIII. You write, " If any one has made, or shall have
made his heir " What are we to think 1 Suppose a
man has bequeathed in legacies more than comes to his heir
or heirs, as by the Voconian law a man may do who is not
included in the census 1 Why do you not guard against this,
as it comes under the same class 1 Because in your expressions
you are not thinking of the interests of a class, but of an
individual ; so that it is perfectly evident that you were
influenced by a desire for money. And if you had issued
this edict with only a prospective operation, it would have
been less iniquitous ; still it would have been scandalous : but
in that case, though it might have been blamed, it could not
have been doubted about, for no one would have broken it.
Now it is an edict of such a sort, that any one can see that it
was written, not for the people, but for the second heir of
Publius Annius. Therefore, though that heading had been
embellished by you with so many words, and with that mer
cenary preamble, was any praetor found afterwards to draw up
an edict in similar style 1 Not only no one ever did publish
such an edict, but no one was ever apprehensive even of
II. AGAINST VERRES. 197
any one publishing such an edict. For after your prsetorship
many people made wills in the same manner, and among
them Annia did so lately. She, by the advice of many of her
relations, being a wealthy woman, because she was not in
cluded in the census, by her will made her daughter her
heiress. This, now, is great proof of men's opinion of the
singular wickedness of that fellow, that, though Verres had
established this of his own accord, yet no one was apprehen
sive that any one could be found to adopt the rule which he
had laid down. For you alone were found to be a man who
could not be satisfied with correcting the wills of the living,
unless you also rescinded those of the dead. You yourself
removed this clause from your Sicilian edict. You wished, if
any matters arose unexpectedly, to decide them according to
your edict as preetor of the city. The defence which you
left yourself afterwards you yourself greatly injured, when
you yourself, in your provincial edict, repudiated your own
authority.
XLIV. And I do not doubt that as this action appears
bitter and unworthy to me, to whom my daughter is very
dear, it appears so also to each one of you who is influenced
by a similar feeling and love for his daughters. For what
has nature ordained to be more agreeable and more dear
to us 1 What is more worthy to have all our affections
and all our indulgence expended upon it? 0 most in
famous of men, why did you do so great an injury to Pub-
lius Annius after death 1 Why did you cause such indelible
grief to his ashes and bones, as to take from his children
the property of their father given to them by the will of
their father in accordance with the law and with the statutes,
and to give them to whomsoever you pleased ? Shall the
prator be able, when we are dead, to take away our property
and oui' fortunes from those to whom we give them while
alive ? He says, " I will neither give any right of petition,
nor possession." Will you, then, take away from a young
girl her purple-bordered robe ? Will you take away, not only
the ornaments of her fortune, but those also denoting her
noble birth ? Do we marvel that the citizens of Lampsacus
flew to arms against that man ? Do we marvel that when he
was leaving his province, he fled secretly from Syracuse ? If
we were as indignant at what happens to others as at our
198 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
own injury, there would not be a relic of that man left to
appear in the forum. The father gives to his daughter : you
forbid it. The laws allow it : yet you interpose your autho
rity. He gives to her of his own property in such a manner
as not to infringe any law. What do you find to blame in
that 1 Nothing, I think. But I allow you to do so. Forbid
it if you can ; if you can find any one to listen to you ; if
any one can possibly obey your order. Will you take away
their will from the dead, — their property from the living, —
their rights from all men ? Would not the Roman people
have avenged itself by force if it had not reserved you for this
occasion and for this trial 1 Since the establishment of the
praetorian power, we have always adopted this principle,
— that if no will was produced, then possession was given
to that person who would have had the best right to be the
heir, if the deceased had died intestate. Why this is the
most righteous principle it is easy to show ; but in a matter
so established by precedent it is sufficient to point out that
all men had previously laid down the law in this way, and
that this was the ancient and customary edict.
XLV. Listen to another new edict of the fellow in a case
of frequent occurrence ; and then, while there is any place
where civil law can be learnt, pray send all the youths of
Rome to his lectures. The genius of the man is marvellous ;
his prudence is marvellous. A man of the name of Minucius
died while he was praetor. He left no will. By law his
inheritance passed to the Minucian family. If Verres had
issued the edict which all praetors both before and after him
did issue, possession would have been given to the Minucian
family. If any thought himself heir by will, though no will
was known, he might proceed by law to put forward his
claim to the inheritance ; or if he had taken security for his
claim, and given security, he then proceeded to try an action
for his inheritance. This is the law which, as I imagine, both
our ancestors and we ourselves have always been accustomed
to. See, now, how that fellow amended it. He composes an
edict ; — such language that any one can perceive that it was
written for the sake of one individual. He all but names the
man; he details his whole cause; he disregards right, custom,
equity, the edicts of all his predecessors. " According to the
edict of the city praetor, — if any doubt arises about an in-
II. AGAINST VEBEES. 199
heritance, if the possessor does not give security . . . . " What
is it to the praetor which is the possessor ? Is not this the
point which ought to be inquired into, who ought to be the
possessor 1 Therefore, because he is in possession, you do not
remove him from the possession. If he were not in posses
sion, you would not give him possession. For you nowhere
say so ; nor do you embrace anything else in your edict except
that cause for which you had received money. What follows
is ridiculous. " If any doubt arises about an inheritance,
and if testamentary papers are produced before me, sealed
with not fewer seals than are required by law, I shall adjudge
the inheritance as far as possible according to the testa
mentary papers." So far is usual. This ought to follow
next : " If testamentary papers are not produced "
What says he 1 That he will adjudge it to him who says he
is the heir. What, then, is the difference whether testa
mentary papers are produced or not 1 If he produces them,
though they may have only one seal less than is required by
law, you will not give him possession ; but if he produces no
such papers at all, you will. What shall I say now ? That
no one else ever issued a similar edict afterwards ? A very
marvellous thing, truly, that there should have been no one
who chose to be considered like that fellow ! He himself, in
his Sicilian edict, has not this passage. No ; for he had
received his payment for it. And so in the edict which I
have mentioned before, which he issued in Sicily, about giving
possession of inheritances, he laid down the same rules which
all the praetors at Rome had laid down besides himself.
From the Sicilian edict, — "If any doubt arise about an
inheritance "
XLVI. But, in the name of the immortal gods, what can
possibly be said of this business 1 For I ask of you now
a second time, as I did just now, with reference to the affair
of Annia, about the inheritance of females, — I ask you now, I
say, about the possession of inheritances, — why you were un
willing to transfer those paragraphs into your provincial
edict ] Did you think those men who were living in the
province more worthy to enjoy just laws than we were ? Or
is one thing just in Rome and another in Sicily 1 For you
cannot say in this place that there are many things in the
provinces which require to be regulated differently from what
200 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
they would if they existed at Rome ; at all events not in the
case of taking possession of inheritances, or of the inheritances
of women. For in both these cases I see that not only all
other magistrates, but that you yourself, have issued edicts
word for word the same as those which are accustomed to be
issued at Rome. The clauses which, with great disgrace and
for a great bribe, you had inserted in your edict at Rome,
those alone, I see, you omitted in your Sicilian edict, in
order not to incur odium in the province for nothing. And
as, while he was praetor elect, he composed his whole edict at
the pleasure of those who bought law of him to secure their
own advantage ; so also, when he had entered on his office,
he used to make decrees contrary to his edict without the
slightest scruple. Therefore, Lucius Piso filled many books
with the affairs in which he had interposed his authority, be
cause Verres had decreed in a manner contrary to his edict.
And I think that you have not forgotten what a multitude
and what respectable citizens used to assemble before Piso's
seat while that man was praetor, and iinless he had had him
for a colleague, he would have been stoned in the very forum.
But his injuries at that time appeared of less importance, be
cause there was a refuge always ready in the justice and pru
dence of Piso, whom men could apply to without any labour,
or any trouble, or any expense, and even without a patron to
recommend them. For, I entreat you, recal to your recol
lection, 0 judges, what licence that fellow took in determining
the law ; how great a variation there was in his decrees, what
open buying and selling of justice ; how empty the houses of
all those men who were accustomed to be consulted on points
of civil law, how full and crammed was the house of Chelidon.
And when men had come from that woman to him, and had
whispered in his ear, at one time he would recal those between
whom he had just decided, and alter his decree ; at another
time he, without the least scruple, gave a decision between
other parties quite contrary to the last decision which he had
given only a little while before. Hence it was that men were
found who were even ridiculous in their indignation ; some
of whom, as you have heard, said that it was not strange that
such piggish1 justice should be worthless. Others were colder;
but still, because they were angry they seemed ridiculous,
1 There is a pun here on the name of Verres, which means a pig, a
II. AGAIXST VERRES. 201
while they execrated Sacerdos who had spared so worthless a
boar. And I should hardly mention these things, for they
were not extraordinarily witty, nor are they worthy of the
gravity of the present subject, if I did not wish you to re
collect that his worthlessness and iniquity were constantly
iu the mouths of the populace, and had become a common
proverb.
XLVII. But shall I first speak of his arrogance towards
the Roman people, or his cruelty ? Beyond all question,
cruelty is the graver and more atrocious crime. Do you
think then that these men have forgotten how that fellow was
accustomed to beat the common people of Rome with rods 1
And indeed a tribune of the people touched on that matter
in the public assembly, when he produced in the sight of the
Roman people the man whom he had beaten with rods. And
I will give you the opportunity of taking cognisance of that
business at its proper time. But who is ignorant with what
arrogance he behaved 1 how he disregarded every one of a low
condition, how he despised them, how he did not account the
poor to be free men at all ? Publius Trebonius made many
virtuous and honourable men his heirs ; and among them his
own freedman. He had had a brother, Aulus Trebonius, a
proscribed man. As he wished to make provision for him, he
put down in his will, that his heirs should take an oath to
manage that not less than half of each man's share should
come to Aulus Trebonius, that proscribed brother of his. The
freedman takes the oath ; the other heirs go to Verres, and
point out to him that they ought not to take such an oath ;
that they should be doing what was contrary to the Cornelian
law, which forbids a proscribed man to be assisted. They
obtain from him authority to refuse the oath. He gives them
possession ; that I do not find fault with. Certainly it was a
scandalous thing for any part of his brother's property to be
given to a man who was proscribed and in want. But that
freedman thought that he should be committing a wickedness
if he did not take the oath in obedience to the will of his
patron. Therefore Verres declares that he will not give him pos
session of his inheritance, in order that he may not be able to
assist his proscribed patron ; and also in order that that might
boar ; and on the name of Sacerdos; which means also a sacrificing
priest.
202 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
serve as a punishment for having obeyed the will of his other
patron. You give possession to him who did not take the
oath. I admit your right to do so ; it is a privilege of the
prsetor. You take it from him who has taken the oath.
According to what precedent? He is aiding a proscribed
man. There is a law ; there is a punishment established in
such a case. What is that to him who is determining the
law 1 Do you blame him because he assisted his patron, who
was in distress at the time, or because he attended to the
wishes of his other patron, who was dead, from whom he had
received the greatest of all benefits ? Which of these actions
are you blaming 1 And then that most admirable man, sitting
on his curule chair, said this : " Can a freedman be heir to a
Roman knight of such great wealth ?" 0 how modest must
the class of freedmen be, since he departed from that place
alive ! I can produce sis hundred decrees in which, even if I
were not to allege that money had interrupted justice, still
the unprecedented and iniquitous nature of the decrees them
selves would prove it. But that by one example you may be
able to form your conjectures as to the rest, listen to what
you have already heard in the previous pleading.
XLVIII. There was a man called Caius Sulpicius Olympus.
He died while Caius Sacerdos was prsetor. I don't know
whether it was not before Verres had begun to announce him
self as a candidate for the prsetorship. He made Marcus
Octavius Ligur his heir. Ligur thus entered upon his inhe
ritance ; he took possession while Sacerdos was praetor, without
any dispute. After Verres entered on his office, in accordance
with his edict, an edict such as Sacerdos had not issued, the
daughter of the patron of Sulpicius began to claim from Ligur
a sixth part of the inheritance. Ligur was absent. His
brother Lucius conducted his cause ; his friends and rela
tions were present. That fellow Verres said that, unless the
business was settled with the woman, he should order her to
take possession. Lucius Gellius defended the cause of Ligur.
He showed that his edict ought not to prevail with respect to
those inheritances which had accrued to the heirs before his
proctorship ; that, if this edict had existed at that time,
perhaps Ligur would not have entered upon the inheritance
at all. This just demand, and the highest authority of
influential men, was beaten down by money. Ligur came to
II. AGAINST VERRES. 203
Rome ; he did not doubt that, if he himself had seen Verres,
he should have been able to move the man by the justice of
his cause and by his own influence. He went to him to his
house ; he explains the whole business ; he points out to him
how long ago, it was that the inheritance had come to him ;
and, as it was easy for an able man to do in a most just
cause, he said many things which might have influenced any
one. At last he began to entreat him not to despise his
influence and scorn his authority to such an extent as to
inflict such an injury upon him. The fellow began to accuse
Ligur of being so assiduous and so attentive in a business
which was adventitious, and only belonging to him by way of
inheritance. He said that he ought to have a regard for him
also ; that he required a great deal himself ; that the dogs
whom he kept about him required a great deal. I cannot
recount those things to you more plainly than you have
heard Ligur himself relate them in his evidence. What are
we to say, then, 0 Verres? Are we not to give credence
to even these men as witnesses ? Are these things not mate
rial to the question before us 1 Are we not to believe Marcus
Octavius 1 Are we not to believe Lucius Ligur 1 Who will
believe us 1 Who shall we believe ? What is there, 0 Verres,
which can ever be made plain by witnesses, if this is not made
so? Or is that which they relate a small thing ? It is nothing
less than the prsetor of the city establishing this law as long
as he remains in office, — that the prsetor ought to be co-heir
with all those to whom an inheritance comes. And can we
doubt with what language that fellow was accustomed to
address the rest of the citizens of an inferior rank, of inferior
authority, and of inferior fortune ; with what language he was
accustomed to address country people from the municipal
towns; with what language he was accustomed to address
those whom he never thought free men, — I mean, the freed-
men ; when he did not hesitate to ask Marcus Octavius
Ligur, a man of the highest consideration as to position,
rank, name, virtue, ability, and % influence, for money for
deciding in favour of his undoubted rights ?
XLIX. And as to how he behaved in the matter of putting
the public buildings in proper repair, what shall I say ? They
have said, who felt it. There are others, too, who are speaking
of this. Notorious and manifest facts have been brought
204 CICERO S ORATIONS.
forward, and shall be brought forward again. Caius Fanning,
a Roman knight, the brother of Quintus Titinius, one of your
judges, has said that he gave you money. Recite the evidence
of Caius Fannius. [Bead.] Pray do not believe Caius Fannius
when he says this ; do not believe — you I mean, 0 Quintus
Titinius— do not believe Caius Fannius, your own brother. For
he is saying what is incredible. He is accusing Caius Verres
of avarice and audacity ; vices which appear to meet in any one
else rather than in him. Quintus Tadius has said something of
the same sort, a most intimate friend of the father of Verres,
and not unconnected with his mother, either in family or in
name. He has produced his account-books, by which he proves
that he had given him money. Recite the particulars of the
accounts of Quintus Tadius. [.ffeac?.] Recite the evidence
of Quintus Tadius. [Read.] Shall we not believe either the
account-books of Quintus Tadius, or his evidence 1 What then
shall we follow in coming to our decision 1 What else is giving
all men free licence for every possible sin and crime, if it is
not the disbelieving the evidence of the most honourable men,
and the account books of honest ones 1 For why should I men
tion the daily conversation and daily complaints of the Roman
people 1 — why that fellow's most impudent theft, I should
rather say, his new and unexampled robbery 1 how he dared
in the temple of Castor, in that most illustrious and renowned
monument, a temple which is placed before the eyes and in
the daily view of the Roman people, to which the senate is
often summoned, where crowded deliberations on the most
momentous affairs take place every day, why should I men
tion his having dai'ed to leave in that place, in contempt of
anything any one can say, an eternal monument of his
audacity 1
L. Publius Junius, 0 judges, had the guardianship of the
temple of Castor. He died in the consulship of Lucius Sylla
and Quintus Metellus. He left behind him a young son under
age. When Lucius Octavius and Caius Aurelius the consuls
had let out contracts for the holy temples, and were not able
to examine all the public buildings to see in what repair they
were ; nor could the praetors to whom that business had been
assigned, namely, Caius Sacerdos and Marcus Csesius ; a
decree of the senate was passed that Caius Verres and Publius
Cselius, the prsetors, should examine into and decide about
II. AGAINST VERRES. 205
those public buildings as to which no examination or decision
had yet taken place. And after this power was conferred on
him, that man, as you have learnt from Caius Fannius and
from Quintus Tadius, as he had committed his robberies in
every sort of affair without the least disguise and with the
greatest effrontery, wished to leave this as a most visible
record of his robberies, which we might, not occasionally hear
of, but see every day of our lives. He inquired who was
bound to deliver up the temple of Castor in good repair. He
knew that Junius himself was dead ; he desired to know to
whom his property belonged. He hears that his son is under
age. The fellow, who had been in the habit of saying openly
that boys and girls who were minors were the surest prey for
the preetors, said that the thing he had so long wished for had
been brought into his bosom. He thought that, in the care
of a monument of such vast size, of such laborious finish, how
ever sound and in however thorough a state of repair it might
be, he should certainly find something to do, and some excuse for
plunder. The temple of Castor ought to have been entrusted
to Lucius Rabonius. He by chance was the guardian of the
young Junius by his father's will. An agreement had been
made between him and his ward, without any injury to either,
in what state it should be given up to him. Verres summons
Rabonius to appear before him ; he asks him whether there
is anything which has not been handed over to him by his
ward, which might be exacted from him. "When he said, as
was the case, that the delivery of the temple had been very
easy for his ward ; that all the statues and presents were in
their places, that the temple itself was sound in every part ;
that fellow began to think it a shameful thing if he was to
give up so large a temple and so extensive a work without
enriching himself by booty, and especially by booty to be got
from a minor.
LI. He comes himself into the temple of Castor ; he looks
all over the temple ; he sees the roof adorned all over with a
most splendid ceiling, and all the rest of the building as good
as new and quite sound. He ponders ; he considers what he
can do. Some one of those dogs, of whom he himself had said
to Ligur that there were a great number about him, said to
him — " You, 0 Verres^ have nothing which you can do here,
unless you like to tiy the pillars by a plumb-line." The man,
206 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
utterly ignorant of everything, asks what is the meaning of
the expression, " by a plumb-line." They tell him that there
is hardly any pillar which is exactly perpendicular when tried
by a plumb-line. " By my truth," says he, " that is what we
must do ; let the pillars be tested by a plumb-line." Rabonius,
like a man who knew the law, in which law the number of the
pillars only is set down, but no mention made of a plumb-
line, and who did not think it desirable for himself to receive
the temple on such terms, lest he should be hereafter expected
to hand it over under similar conditions, says that he is not
to be treated in that way, and that such an examination
has no right to be made. Verres orders Rabonius to be quiet,
and at the same time holds out to him some hopes of a
partnership with himself in the business. He easily over
powers him, a moderate man, and not at all obstinate in
his opinions j and so he adheres to his determination of hav
ing the pillai's examined. This unprecedented resolve, and the
unexpected calamity of the minor, is immediately reported to
Caius Mustius, the step-father of the youth, who is lately
dead ; to Marcus Junius, his uncle, and to Publius Potitius,
his guardian, a most frugal man. They report the business
to a man of the greatest consideration, of the greatest bene
volence and virtue, Marcus Marcellus, who was also a guardian
of the minor. Marcus Marcellus comes to Verres ; he begs of
him with many arguments, in the name of his own good faith
and diligence in his office, not to endeavour to deprive Junius
his ward of his father's fortune by the greatest injustice.
Verres, who had already in hope and belief devoured that
booty, was neither influenced by the justice of Marcus Mar-
cellus's argument, nor by his authority. And therefore he
answered that he should proceed with the examination, accord
ing to the orders which he had given. As they found that or
all applications to this man were ineffectual, all access to him
difficult, and almost impossible, being, as he was, a man with
whom neither right, nor equity, nor mercy, nor the arguments
of a relation, nor the wishes of a friend, nor the influence of
any one had any weight, they resolve that the best thing
which they could do, as indeed might have occurred to any
one, was to beg Chelidon for her aid, who, while Verres
was praetor, was not only the real judge in all civil law, and
in the disputes of all private individuals, but who was
II. AGAIXST VERRES. 207
supreme also in this affair of the repairs of the public build
ings.
LII. Caius Mustius, a Roman knight, a farmer of the re
venues, a man of the very highest honour, came to Chelidon.
Marcus Junius, the uncle of the youth, a most frugal and
temperate man, came to her; a man who shows his regard
for his high rank by the greatest honour, and modesty, and
attention to his duties. Publius Potitius, his guardian, came
to her. Oh that prsetorship of yours, bitter to many, miser
able, scandalous ! To say nothing of other points, with what
shame, with what indignation, do you think that such men.
as these went to the house of a prostitute? men who would
have encountered such disgrace on no account, unless the
urgency of their duty and of their relationship to the injured
youth had compelled them to do so. They came, as I say, to
Chelidon. The house was full; new laws, new decrees, new
decisions were being solicited : " Let him give me possession."
. . ." Do not let him take away from me.". . . " Do not let him
give sentence against me." . . . . " Let him adjudge the pro
perty to me." Some were paying money, some were signing
documents. The house was full, not with a prostitute's train,
but rather with a crowd seeking audience of the prsetor. As
soon as they can get access to her, the men whom I have
mentioned go to her. Mustius speaks, he explains the whole
affair, he begs for her assistance, he promises money. She
answers, considering she was a prostitute, not unreasonably :
she says that she will gladly do what they wish, and that she
will talk the matter over with Verres carefully; and desires
Mustius to come again. Then they depart. The next day
they go again. She says that the man cannot be prevailed on,
that he says that a vast sum can be made of the business.
LIII. I am afraid that perhaps some of the people, who were
not present at the former pleading, (because these things seem
incredible on account of their consummate baseness,) may think
that they are invented by me. You, 0 judges, have known them
before. Publius Potitius, the guardian of the minor Junius,
stated them on his oath. So did Marcus Junius, his uncle
and guardian. So would Mustius have stated them if he had
been alive; but as Mustius cannot, Lucius Domitius stated
that while the affair was recent, he heard these things stated
by Mustius ; and though he knew that T had had the account
208 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
from Mustius while he was alive, for I was very intimate with
him ; (and indeed I defended Caius Mustius when he gained
that trial which he had about almost the whole of his pro
perty ;) though, I say, Lucius Domitius knew that I was aware
that Mustius was accustomed to tell him all his affairs, yet
he said nothing about Chelidon as long as he could help it ;
he directed his replies to other points. So great was the
modesty of that most eminent young man, of that pattern
for the youth of the city, that for some time, though he was
pressed by me on that point, he would rather give any answer
than mention the name of Chelidon. At first, he said that
the friends of Verrcs had been deputed to mention the subject
to him ; at last, after a time, being absolutely compelled to do
so, he named Chelidon. Are you not ashamed, 0 Verres, to
have carried on your prsetorship according to the will of that
woman, whom Lucius Domitius scarcely thought it creditable
to him even to mention the name of1?
LIV. Being rejected by Chelidon, they adopt the necessary
resolution of undertaking the business themselves. They
settle the business, which ought to have come to scarcely forty
thousand sesterces, with Rabonius the other guardian, for two
hundred thousand. Rabonius reports the fact to Verres ; a?
it seems to him the exaction has been sufficiently enormous
and sufficiently shameless. He, who had expected a good deal
more, receives Rabonius with harsh language, and says that
he cannot satisfy him with such a settlement as that. To cut
the matter short, he says that he shall issue contracts for the
job. The guardians are ignorant of this ; they think that
what has been settled with Rabonius is definitely arranged —
they fear no further misfortune for their ward. But Verres
does not procrastinate; he begins to let out his contracts,
(without issuing any advertisement or notice of the day,) at
a most unfavourable time — at the very time of the Roman
games, and while the forum is decorated for them. Therefore
Rabonius gives notice to the guardians that he renounces the
settlement to which he had come. However, the guardians
come at the appointed time ; Junius, the uncle of the youth,
bids. Verres began to change colour: his countenance, his
speech, his resolution failed him. He began to consider what
he was to do. If the contract was taken by the minor, if the
affair slipped through the fingers of the purchaser whom he
II. AGAINST VEERES. 209
himself liad provided, he would get no plunder. Therefore
he contrives — what? Nothing very cleverly, nothing of which
any one could say, " It was a rascally trick, but still a deep
one." Do not expect any disguised roguery from him, any
underhand trick ; you will find everything open, undisguised,
shameless, senseless, audacious. " If the contract be taken
by the minor, all the plunder is snatched out of my hands;
what then is the remedy 1 What 1 The minor must not be
allowed to have the contract." Where is the usage in the
case of selling property, securities, or lands adopted by every
consul, and censor, and praetor, and quaestor, that that bidder
shall have the preference to whom the property belongs, and
at whose risk the property is sold? He excludes that bidder
alone to whom alone, I was nearly saying, the power of taking
the contract ought to have been offered. " For why" — so the
youth might say — " should any one aspire to my money
against my will 1 What does he come forward for ? The
contract is let out for a work which is to be done and paid for
out of my money. I say that it is I who am going to put the
place in repair; the inspection of it afterwards will belong to
you who let out the contract. You have taken sufficient
security for the interests of the people with bonds and sureties ;
and if you do not think sufficient security has been taken,
will you as praetor send whomsoever you please to take pos
session of my property, and not permit me to come foward in
defence of my own fortune?"
LV. It is worth while to consider the words of the contract
itself. You will say that the same man drew it up who drew
up that edict about inheritance. " The contract for work to
be done, which the minor Junius's . . . ." Speak, I pray
you, a little more plainly. " Caius Verres, the praetor of the
city, has added . . . ." The contracts of the censors are
being amended. For what do they say ? I see in many
old documents, " Cnseus Domitius, Lucius Metellus, Lucius
Cassius, Cnseus Servilius have added . . . ." Caius Verres wants
something of the same sort. Read. What has he added ?
" Admit not as a partner in this work any one who has taken
a contract from Lucius Marcius and Marcus Perperna the
censors ; give him no share in it ; and let him not contract
for it." Why so ? Is it that the work may not be faulty ?
But the inspection afterwards belonged to you. Lest ha
p
210 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
should not have capital enough 1 But sufficient security had
been taken for the people's interest in bonds and sureties,
and more security still might have been had. If in this case
the business itself, if the scandalous nature of your injustice
had no weight with you ; — if the misfortune of this minor,
the tears of his relations, the peril of Decimus Brutus, whose
lands were pledged as security for him, and the authority of
Marcus Marcellus his guardian had no influence with you, did
you not even consider this, that your crime would be such
that you would neither be able to deny it, (for you had entered
it in your account-books,) nor, if you confessed it, to make
any excuse for it 1 The contract is knocked down at five
hundred and sixty thousand sesterces, while the guardians
kept crying out that they could do it even to the satisfaction
of the most unjust of men, for eighty thousand. In truth,
what was the job ? That which you saw. All those pillars
which you see whitewashed, had a crane put against them,
were taken down at a very little expense, and put up again of
the same stone as before. And you let this work out for five
hundred and sixty thousand sesterces. And among those
pillars I say that there are some which have never been moved
at all by your contractor. I say that there are some which
only had the outer coat scraped off, and a fresh coat put on.
But, if I had thought that it cost so much to whitewash
pillars, I should certainly never have stood for the oedileship.
Still, in order that something might appear to be really being
done, and that it might not seem to be a mere robbery of a
minor — " If in the course of the work you injure anything,
you must repair it."
LVI. What was there that he could injure, when he was
only putting back every stone in its place 1 " He who takes
the contract must give security to bear the man harmless who
has taken the work from the former contractor." He is joking
when he orders Rabonius to give himself security. " Ready
money is to be paid." Out of what funds 1 From his funds
who cried out that he would do for eighty thousand sesterces
what you let out at five hundred and sixty thousand. Out
of what funds ? out of the funds of a minor, whose tender
age and desolate condition, even if he had no guardians, the
proetor himself ought to protect. But as his guardians did
protect him, you took away not only his paternal fortune,
II. AGAINST VERRES. 211
but the property of the guardians also. " Execute the work
in the best materials of every sort." Was any stone to be cut
and brought to the place ? Nothing was to be brought but
the crane. For no stone, no materials at all were brought j
there was just as much to be done in that contract as took a
little labour^of artisans at low wages, and there was the hire
of the crane. Do you think it was less work to make one
entirely new pillar without any old stone, which could be
worked up again, or to put back those four in their places ?
No one doubts that it is a much greater job to make one new
one. I will prove that in private houses, where there has
been a great deal of expensive carriage, pillars no smaller than,
these arc contracted for to be placed in an open court for forty
thousand sesterces apiece. But it is folly to argue about such
manifest shamelessness of that man at any greater length,
especially when in the whole contract he has openly dis
regarded the language and opinion of every one, ina&much as
he has added at the bottom of it, " Let him have the old
materials for himself." As if any old materials were taken
from that work, and as if the whole work were uot done with
old materials. But still, if the minor was not allowed to take
the contract, it was not necessary for it to come to Verres
himself : some other of the citizens might have undertaken
the work. Every one else was excluded no less openly than
the minor. He appointed a day by which the work must be
completed — the first of December. He gives out the contract
about the thirteenth of September : every one is excluded by
the shortness of the time. What happens then 1 How does
Rabonius contrive to have his work done by that day 1
LVII. No one troubles Rabonius, neither on the first of
December, nor on the fifth, nor on the thirteenth. At last
Verres himself goes away to his province some time before the
work is completed. After he was prosecuted, at first he said
that he could not enter the work in his accounts; when
Rabonius pressed it, he attributed the cause of it to me, be
cause I had sealed up his books. Rabonius applies to me, and
sends his friends to apply to me ; he easily gets what he wishes
for ; Verres did not know what he was to do. By not having
entered it in his accounts, he thought he should be able to
make some defence ; but he felt sure that Rabonius would
reveal the whole of the transaction. Although, what could
212 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
be more plain than it now is, even without the evidence of
any witness whatever. At last he enters the work in Rabo-
nius's name as undertaken by him, four years after the day
which he had fixed for its completion. He would never have
allowed such terms as those if any other citizen had been the
contractor ; when he had shut out all the other contractors by
the early day which he had fixed, and also because men did
not choose to put themselves in the power of a man who, if
they took the contract, thought that his plunder was torn
from his hands. For why need we discuss the point where
the money went to ? He himself has showed us. First of all,
when Decimus Brutus contended eagerly against him, who
paid five hundred and sixty thousand sesterces of his own
money ; and as he could not resist him, though he had given
out the job, and taken securities for its execution, he returned
him a hundred and ten thousand. Now if this had been
another man's money, he clearly could not have done so. In
the second place, the money was paid to Cornificius, whom he
cannot deny to have been his secretary. Lastly, the accounts
of Rabonius himself cry out loudly that the plunder was
Verres's own. Read "The items of the accounts of
Rabonius."
LVIII. Even in this place in the former pleadings Quin-
tus Hortensius complained that the young Junius came clad
in his prsetexta1 into your presence, and stood with his uncle
while he was giving his evidence ; and said that I was seeking
to rouse the popular feeling, and to excite odium against him,
by producing the boy. What then was there, 0 Hortensius,
to rouse the popular feeling ? what was there to excite odium
in that boy ? I suppose, forsooth, I had brought forward the
son of Gracchus, or of Saturninus, or of some man of that
soil, to excite the feelings of an ignorant multitude by the
mere name and recollection of his father. He was the son of
Publius Junius, one of the common people of Rome ; whom
his dying father thought he ought to recommend to the pro
tection of guardians and relations, and of the laws, and of the
equity of the magistrates, and of your administration of jus
tice. He, through the wicked letting out of contracts by that
1 The prsetexta was a token of the tender age of the youth, as it was
only worn by boys under the age of seventeen, and then was exchanged
for the toga virilis.
II. AGAINST VERRES. 213
man, and through his nefarious robbery, being deprived of all
his paternal property and fortune, came before your tribunal,
if for nothing else, at least to see him through whose conduct
he himself has passed many years in mourning, a little less
gaily1 dressed than he was used to be. Therefore, 0 Hortensius,
it was not his age but his cause, not his. dress but his fortune,
that seemed to you calculated to rouse the popular feeling.
Nor did it move you so much that he had come with the
preetexta, as that he had come without the bulla.2 For no
one was influenced by that dress which custom and the right
of his free birth allowed him to wear. Men were indignant,
and very indignant, that the ornament of childhood which his
father had given him, the proof and sign of his good fortune,
had been taken from him by that robber. Nor were the tears
which were shed for him shed more by the people than by us,
and by yourself, 0 Hortensius, and by those who are to pro
nounce sentence in this cause. For because it is the common
cause of all men, the common danger of all men, such wicked
ness like a conflagration must be put out by the common
endeavours of all men. For we have little children ; it is
uncertain how long the life of each individual among us may
last. We, while alive, ought to take care and provide that
their desolate condition and childhood may be secured by the
strongest possible protection. For who is there who can
defend the childhood of our children against the dishonesty
of magistrates 1 Their mother, I suppose. No doubt, the
mother of Annia, though a most noble woman, was a great
protection to her when she was left a minor. No doubt she,
by imploring the aid of gods and men, prevented him from
robbing her infant ward of her father's fortunes. Can their
guardians defend them 1 Very easily, no doubt, with a praetor
of that sort by whom both the arguments, and the earnest
ness, and the authority of Marcus Marcellus in the cause of
his ward Junius were disregarded.
1 Dressed, that is, in the mourning rohe in which defendants in
criminal prosecutions usually appeared in court.
2 " The bulla was an ornament of gold worn by children, suspended
from their necks, especially by the children of the noble and wealthy;
it was worn by children of both sexes, as a token of paternal affection
and of high birth. Instead of the bulla of gold, boys of inferior
rank, including the children of freedmen, wore only a piece of leather."
— Smith, Diet. Ant. v. BuUa.
214 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
LIX. Do we ask what he did in the distant province of
Phrygia? what in the most remote parts of Pamphylia? What
a robber of pirates he proved himself in war, who had been
fonnd to be a nefarious plunderer of the Roman people in
the forum 1 Do we doubt what that man would do with
respect to spoils taken from the enemy, who appropriated to
himself so much phmder from the spoils of Lucius Metellus?1
who let out a contract for whitewashing four pillars at a
greater price than Metellus paid for erecting the whole of
them ? Must we wait to hear what the witnesses from Sicily
say ? Who has ever seen that temple who is not a witness
of your avarice, of your injustice, of your audacity 1 Who
has ever come from the statue of Vertumnus into the Circus
Maximus, without being reminded at eveiy step of your
avarice ? for that road, the road of the sacred cars and of such
solemn processions, you have had repaired in such a way that
you yourself do not dare go by it. Can any one think that
when you were separated from Italy by the sea you spared
the allies 1 You who chose the temple of Castor to be the
witness of your thefts which the Roman people saw every day,
and even the judges at the very moment that they were
giving their decision concerning you.
LX. And he, even during his prsetorship, exercised the
office of judge in public cases.2 For even that must not be
passed over. A fine was sought to be recovered from Quintus
Opimius before him while prsetor ; who was brought to trial,
as it was alleged, indeed, because while tribune of the people
he had interposed his veto in a manner contrary to the
Cornelian law,3 but, in reality, because while tribune of the
people he had said something which gave offence to some one
of the nobles. And if I were to wish to say anything of that
decision, I should have to call in question and to attack many
people, which it is not necessary for me to do. I will only
1 This temple of Castor had been vowed by Postumius, the dictator,
at the battle of Lake Ilegillus. It was decorated with statues and other
embellishments by Lucius Metellus, surnamed Dalmaticus, out of the
wealth he acquired by, and the spoils he brought back from, the war in
Illyricum.
8 The praetors appointed the judges, but had not themselves the right
of sitting as judges iu all criminal cases, only in a few special ones.
3 This law had been passed by Sylla to take away from the tribunes
the power of interposing their veto, but Pompey restored it to them.
II. AGAINST VERRES. 215
say that a few arrogant men, to say the least of them, with
his assistance, ruined all the fortunes of Quintus Opimius in
fun and joke.
Again ; does he complain of me, because the first pleading
of his cause was brought to an end by me in nine days only ;
when before himself as judge, Quintus Opimius, a senator of
the Eornan people, in three hours lost his property, his posi
tion, and all his titles of honour? On account of the scan
dalous nature of which decision, the question has often been
mooted in the senate of taking away the whole class of fines
and sentences of that sort. But what plunder he amassed in
selling the property of Quintus Opimius, and how openly,
how scandalously he amassed it, it would take too long to
relate now. This I say, — unless I make it plain to you by
the account-books of most honourable men, believe that I
have invented it all for the present occasion.
Now the man who profiting by the disaster of a Roman
senator, at whose trial he had presided while praetor, endea
voured to strip him of his spoils and carry them to his own
house, has he a right to deprecate any calamity to himself?
LXI. For as for the choosing of other judges by Junius,1
of that I say nothing. For why should I ? Should I venture
to speak against the lists which you produced 1 It is difficult
to do so; for not only does your own influence and that of
the judges deter me, but also the golden ring of your secre
tary.2 I will not say that which it is difficult to prove ; I will
say this — which I will prove, — that many men of the first
consequence heard you say that you ought to be pardoned for
having produced a false list, for that, unless you had guarded
against it, you yourself would also have been ruined by the
same storm of unpopularity as that under which Caius
Junius fell.
In this way has that fellow learnt to take care of himself
and of his own safety, by entering both in his own private
registers and in the public documents what had never hap-
1 In the trial between Cluentius and Oppianicus, Junius was the
presiding judge. The imputation 011 him was, that he had used fraudu
lent tricks to pack the tribunal, in selecting by lot the judges who were
to act instead of those who had been objected to by both parties.
2 The allusion is to the golden ring which Verres, when leaving
Sicily, had publicly decjreed to his secretary, as is mentioned also in the
fourth oration against Verres, that " De Re Prumentaria."
216 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
pened ; by effacing all mention of what had ; and by continu
ally taking away something, changing something (taking care
that no erasure was visible), interpolating something. For hf
has come to such a pitch, that he cannot even find a defence
for his crimes without committing other crimes. That most
senseless man thought that such a substitution of his own
judges also could be effected by the instrumentality of his
comrade, Quintus Curtius, who was to be principal judge; and
unless I had prevented that by the power of the people, and
the outcries and reproaches of all men, the advantage of hav
ing judges taken from this decuria1 of our body, whose influ
ence it was desirable for me should be rendered as extensive
as possible, while he was substituting others for them without
any reason, and placing on the bench those whom Verres had
approved.
[The rest of this oration is lost.]
THE SECOND BOOK OP THE SECOND PLEADING AGAINST
CAIUS VERRES.
CONCERNING HIS MANNER OF DECIDING CAUSES AS JUDGE
WHILE IN SICILY.
THE ARGUMENT.
Cicero divides his accusation of Verres, on account of his conduct in
Sicily, under four heads, of which the first is judicial corruption and
extortion. And in this branch of the accusation he does not attend
to the chronological order of his offences, but takes the instances
according to the different classes under which they seem to fall, and
according to their importance.
I. MANY things, 0 judges, must be necessarily passed over by
me. in order that I may be able at last to speak in some
manner of those matters which have been entrusted to my
1 "With the passing of special enactments for the punishment of
particular offences was introduced the practice of forming a body of
judices for the trial of such offences as the enactments were directed
against. Thus it is said that the lex Calpurnia de pecuniis repetundia
III. AGAINST VERRES. 217
good faith. For I have undertaken the cause of Sicily; that
is the province which has tempted me to this business. But
when I took upon myself this burden, and undertook the
cause of Sicily, in my mind I embraced a wider range, for I
took upon myself also the cause of my whole order — I took
upon myself the cause of the Roman people ; because I thought
that in that case alone could a just decision be come to, if not
only a wicked criminal was brought up, but if at the same
time a diligent and firm accuser came before the court. On
which account I must the sooner come to the cause of Sicily
omitting all mention of his other thefts and iniquities, in
order that I may be able to handle it while my strength is
yet unimpaired, and that I may have time enough to dilate
fully on the business. And before I begin to speak of the
distresses of Sicily, it seems to me that I ought to say a little
of the dignity and antiquity of that province, and of the
advantage which it is to us. For as you ought to have a
careful regard for all the allies and provinces, so especially
ought you to have a regard for Sicily, 0 judges, for many,
and those the greatest, reasons : — First, because of all foreign
nations Sicily was the first who joined herself to the friend
ship and alliance of the Roman people. She was the first to
be called a province; and the provinces are a great ornament
to the empire. She was the first who taught our ancestors
how glorious a thing it was to rule over foreign nations. She
alone has displayed such good faith and such good will to
wards the Roman people, that the states of that island which
have once come into our alliance have never revolted after
wards, but many of them, and those the most illustrious of
them, have remained firm to our friendship for ever. There
fore our ancestors made their first strides to dominion over
Africa from this province. Nor would the mighty power of
Carthage so soon have fallen, if Sicily had not been open to
us, both as a granary to supply us with corn, and as a harbour
for our fleets.
II. Wherefore, Publius Africanus, when he had destroyed
established the album judieum, or the body out of which the judices
were to be chosen. It is not known what was the number of the judges
so constituted, but it has been conjectured that the number was three
hundred and fifty, and that ten were chosen from each tribe, and thus the
origin of the phrase, decurice judieum is explained." — Smith, Diet. Ant.
p. 531, v. Judex.
218 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
Carthage, adorned the cities of the Sicilians with most beau
tiful statues and monuments, in order to place the greatest
number of monuments of his victory among those whom he
thought were especially delighted at the victory of the Roman
people. Afterwards that illustrious man, Marcus Marcellus
himself, whose valour in Sicily was felt by his enemies, his
mercy by the conquered, and his good faith by all the Sicilians,
not only provided in that war for the advantage of his allies,
but spared even his conquered enemies. When by valour and
skill he had taken Syracuse, that most beautiful city, which was
not only strongly fortified by art, but was protected also by
its natural advantages — by the character of the ground about
it, and by the sea— he not only allowed it to remain without
any diminution of its strength, but he left it so highly adorned,
as to be at the same time a monument of his victory, of his
clemency, and of his moderation ; when men saw both what
he had subdued, and whom he had spared, and what he had
left behind him. He thought that Sicily was entitled to have
so much honour paid to her, that he did not think that he
ought to destroy even an enemy's city in an island of such
allies. And therefore we have always so esteemed the island of
Sicily for every purpose, as to think that whatever she could
produce was not so much raised among the Sicilians as stored
up in our own homes. When did she not deliver the corn
which she was bound to deliver, by the proper day? When
did she fail to promise us, of her own accord, whatever she
thought we stood in need of 1 When did she ever refuse any
thing which was exacted of her ? Therefore that illustrious
Marcus Cato the wise called Sicily a storehouse of provisions
for our republic— the nurse of the Roman people. But we
experienced, in that long and difficult Italian war which we
encountered, that Sicily was not only a storehouse of provi
sions to us, but was also an old and well filled treasury left us
by our ancestors ; for, supplying us with hides, with tunics,
and with corn, it clothed, armed, and fed our most numerous
armies, without any expense at all to us.
III. What more need I say 1 How great are these services,
0 judges, which perhaps we are hardly aware we are receiving ;
— that we have many wealthy citizens, that they have a pro
vince with which they are connected, faithful and productive,
to which they may easily make excursions, where they may be
III. AGAINST VETIRES. 219
welcome to engage in traffic ; citizens, some of whom she dis
misses with gain and profit by supplying them with merchan
dise, some she retains, as they take a fancy to turn farmers,
or graziers, or traders in her land, or even to pitch in it their
habitations and their homes. And this is no trifling advan
tage to the Roman people, that so vast a number of Roman
citizens should be detained so near home by such a respect
able and profitable business. And since our tributary nations
and our provinces are, as it were, farms belonging to the
Roman people ; just as one is most pleased with those farms
which are nearest to one, so too the suburban character of
this province is very acceptable to the Roman people. And as
to the inhabitants themselves, 0 judges, such is their patience,
their virtue, and their frugality, that they appear to come
very nearly up to the old-fashioned manners of our country,
and not to those which now prevail. There is nothing then
like the rest of the Greeks ; no sloth, no luxury ; on the con
trary there is the greatest diligence in all public and private
affairs, the greatest economy, and the greatest vigilance. More
over, they are so fond of our nation that they are the only people
where neither a publican nor a money-changer is unpopular.
And they have borne the injuries of many of our magistrates
with such a disposition, that they have never till this time
fled by any public resolution to the altar of our laws and to
your protection ; although they endured the misery of that
year which so prostrated them that they could not have been
preserved through it, if Caius Marcellus had not come among
them, by some special providence, as it were, in order that the
safety of Sicily might be twice secured by the same family.
Afterwards, too, they experienced that terrible government of
Marcus Antonius. For they had had these principles handed
down to them from their ancestors, that the kindnesses of the
Roman people to the Sicilians had been so great, that they
ought to think even the injustice of some of our men endura
ble. The states have never before this man's time given any
public evidence against any one. And they would have borne
even this man himself, if he had sinned against them like a
roan, in any ordinary manner ; or, in short, in any one single
kind of tyranny. But as they were unable to endure luxury,
cruelty, avarice, and pride, when they had lost by the wicked
ness and lust of one man all their own advantages, all their
own rights, and all fruits of the kindness of the senate and
220 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
the Roman people, they determined either to avenge them-
•elves for the injuries they had suffered from that man by
your instrumentality, or if they seemed to you unworthy of
receiving aid and assistance at your hands, then to leave their
cities and their homes, since they had already left their fields,
having been driven out of them by his injuries.
IV. With this design all the deputations begged of Lucius
Metellus that he would come as his successor as early as pos
sible ; with these feelings, they so often bewailed their mise
ries to their patrons ; agitated by this indignation, they
addressed the consuls with demands, which seemed to be not
demands, but charges against that tyrant. They contrived
also, by their indignation and their tears, to draw me, whose
good faith and moderation they had experienced, almost from
the employment of my life, in order to become his accuser ;
an action with which both the settled plan of my life and my
inclination are utterly inconsistent ; (although in this business
I appear to have undertaken a cause which has more parts of
defence than of accusation in it ;) lastly, the most noble men
and the chief men of the whole province have come forward
both publicly and privately ; every city of the greatest autho
rity — every city of the highest reputation — have come forward
with the greatest earnestness to prosecute its oppressor for
its injuries.
But how, 0 judges, have they come 1 It seems to me that
I ought to speak before you now on behalf of the Sicilians
with more freedom than perhaps they themselves wish. For
I shall consult their safety rather than their inclination. Do
you think that there was ever any criminal in any province
defended in his absence against the inquiry into his conduct
urged by his accuser, with such influence, and with such zeal?
The quaestors of both provinces,1 who were so while he was
praetor, stood close to me with their forces. Those also who
succeeded them, very zealous for his interests, liberally fed
from his stores, were no less vehement against me. See
how great was his influence who had four quaestors in one
province, most zealous defenders and bulwarks of his cause :
and the praetor and all his train so zealous in his interest,
that it was quite plain, that it was not Sicily, which they
had come upon when stripped bare, so much as Verres him-
1 Sicily had two quaestors, one for the western or Lilybsean district, one
for the Syracusan.
III. AGAINST VERRES. 221
self, who had left it loaded, which they looked upon as their
province. They began to threaten the Sicilians, if they de
creed any deputations to make statements against him ; to
threaten any one who had gone on any such deputation ,
to make most liberal promises to others, if they spoke well of
him ; to detain by force and under guard the most damaging
witnesses of his private transactions, whom we had summoned
by word of mouth to give evidence.
V. And though all this was done, yet know ye, that there
was but one single city, that, namely, of the Mamertines,
which by public resolution sent ambassadors to speak in
his favour. But you heard the chief man of that embassy,
the most noble man of that state, Caius Heius, speak on his
oath, and say, that Verres had had a transport of the largest
size built at Messana, the work being contracted for at the
expense of the city. And that same ambassador of the
Mamertines, his panegyrist, said that he had not only robbed
him of his private property, but had also carried away his
sacred vessels, and the images of the Di Penates, which he
had received from his ancestors, out of his house. A noble
panegyric ; when the one business of the ambassadors is dis
charged by two operations, praising the man and demanding
back what has been stolen by him. And on what account
that very city is friendly to him, shall be told in its proper
place. For you will find that those very things which are the
causes of the Mamertines bearing him good-will, are them
selves sufficiently just causes for his condemnation. No other
city, 0 judges, praises him by public resolution. The power
of supreme authority has had so much influence with a very
few men, not in the cities, that either some most insignificant
people of the most miserable and deserted towns were found
who would go to Rome without the command of their people
or their senate, or on the other hand, those who had been
voted as -ambassadors against him, and who had received the
public evidence to deliver, and the public commission, were
detained by force or by fear. And I am not vexed at this
having happened in a few instances, in order that the rest of
the cities, so numerous, so powerful, and so wise, — that all
Sicily, in short, should have all the more influence with you
when you see that they could be restrained by no force, could
be hindered by no danger, from making experiment whether
222 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
the complaints of your oldest and most faithful allies had auy
•weight with you. For as to what some of you may, perhaps,
have heard, that he had a public encomium passed upon him
by the Syracusans, although in the former pleading you learnt
from the evidence of Heraclius the Syracusan what sort
of encomium it was, still it shall be proved to you in an
other place how the whole matter really stands as far as that-
city is concerned. For you shall see clearly that no man has
ever been so hated by any people as that man both is and
has been by the Syracusans.
VI. But perhaps it is only the native Sicilians who are
persecuting him : the Roman citizens who are trading in
Sicily defend him, love him, desire his safety. First of all, if
that were the case, still in this trial for extortion, which has
been established for the sake of the allies, according to that
law and forms of proceeding which the allies are entitled to,
you ought to listen to the complaints of the allies. But you
were able to see clearly in the former pleading, that many
Roman citizens from Sicily, most honourable men, gave
evidence about most important transactions, both as to
injuries which they had received themselves, and injuries
which they knew had been inflicted on others. I, 0 judges,
affirm in this way what I know. I seem to myself to have
done an action acceptable to the Sicilians in seeking to
avenge their injuries with my own labour, at my own peril,
and at the risk of incurring enmity in some quarters ; and I
am sure that this which I am doing is not less acceptable to
our own citizens, who think that the safety of their rights, of
their liberty, of their properties and fortunes, consists in the
condemnation of that man. On which account, while speak
ing of his Sicilian prsetorship, I will not object to your
listening to me on this condition, that if he has been ap
proved of by any description of men whatever, whether of
Sicilians or of our own citizens ; if he has been approved of by
any class of men, whether agriculturists, or graziers, or mer
chants ; if he has not been the common enemy and plunderer
of all these men, — if, in short, he has ever spai'ed any man
in any thing, then you, too, shall spare him.
Now, as soon as Sicily fell to him by lot as his province, im
mediately at Rome, while he was yet in the city, before he
departed, he began to consider within himself and to deli-
III. AGAINST VERGES. 223
berate with his friends, by what means he might make the
greatest sum of money in that province in one year. He did not
like to learn while he was acting, (though he was not entirely
ignorant and inexperienced in the oppression of a province,)
but he wished to arrive in Sicily with all his plans for
plunder carefully thought of and prepared. Oh how correct
was the augury diffused by common report and common con
versation among the people in that province ! when from his
very name men augured in a jesting way what he woiild do
in the province. Indeed, who could doubt, when they recol
lected his flight and robbery in his qusestorship — when they
considered his spoliation of temples and shrines in his lieu
tenancy — when they saw in the forum the plunder of his
praetorship — what sort of man he was likely to prove in tho
fourth act of his villainy ]
VII. And that you may be aware that he inquired at Rome
not only into the different kinds of robbery which he might
be able to execute, but into the very names of his victims,
listen to this most certain proof, by which you will be able
more easily to form an opinion of his unexampled impudence.
The very day on which he reached Sicily, (see now whether he
was not come, according to that omen bruited about the city,)
prepared to sweep ' the province pretty clean, he immediately
sends letters from Messana to Halesa, which I suppose he had
written in Italy. For, as soon as he disembarked from the
ship, he gave orders that Dio of Halesa should come to him
instantly; saying that he wished to make inquiry about an
inheritance which had conie to his son from a relation,
Apollodorus Laphiro. It was, 0 judges, a very large sum of
money. This Dio, 0 judges, is now, by the kindness of Quin-
tus Metellus, become a Roman citizen ; and in his case it was
proved to your satisfaction at the former pleading, by the
evidence of many men of the highest consideration, and by
the account-books of many men, that a million of sesterces
had been paid in order that, after Verres had inquired into
the cause, in which there could no possible doubt exist, he
might have a decision in his favour ; — that, besides that, his
herds of the highest-bred mares were driven away, that all
the plate and embroidered robes which he had in his house
1 This is another pun on the name of Verres, from its similarity in
sound to the word verro, I sweep.
221 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
were carried off; so that Quintus Dio lost eleven hundred
thousand sesterces because an inheritance had come to him.
and for no other reason. What are we to say 1 Who was
praetor when this inheritance came to the son of Dio ? The
same man who was so when hers came to Annia the
daughter of Publius Annius the senator ; — the same who was
so when his was left to Marcus Ligur the senator, namely
Cains Sacerdos. What are we to say 1 Had no one been
troublesome to Dio on the subject at the time ? No more
than they had to Ligur, while Sacerdos was praetor. What
then 1 Did any one make any complaint to Verres ? No
body, unless perhaps you suppose that the informers were
ready for him at the strait.
VIII. When he was still at Rome, he heard that a very
great inheritance had come to a certain Sicilian named Dio ;
that the heir had been enjoined by the terms of the will to
erect statues in the forum ; that, unless he erected them, he
was to be liable to forfeiture to Venus Erycina. Although
they had been erected in compliance with the will, still he,
Verres, thought, since the name of Venus was mentioned, that
he could find some pretext for making money of it. There
fore he sets up a man to claim that inheritance for Venus
Erycina. For it was not (as would have been usual) the
quaestor in whose province Mount Eryx was, who made the
demand. A fellow of the name of Nsevius Turpo is the
claimant, a spy and emissary of Verres, the most infamous of
all that band of informers of his, who had been condemned in
the praetorship of Caius Sacerdos for many wickednesses.
For the cause was such that the very praetor himself when he
was seeking for an accuser, could not find one a little more
respectable than this fellow. Verres acquits his man of any
forfeiture to Venus, but condemns him to pay forfeit to him
self. He preferred, forsooth, to have men do wrong rather
than gods ; — he preferred himself to extort from Dio what
was contrary to law, rather than to let Venus take anything
that was not due to her. Why need I now in this place recite
the evidence of Sextus Pompeius Chlorus, who pleaded Dio's
cause 1 who was concerned in the whole business ? A most
honourable man, and, although he has long ago been made a
Roman citizen in reward for his virtues, still the very chief
man and the most noble of all the Sicilians. Why need I
III. AGAINST VERRES. 225
recite the evidence of Quintus Csecilius Dio himself, a meet
admirable and moderate man ? Why need I recite that of
Lucius Vetecilius Ligur, of Titus Manlius, of Lucius Calenus?
by the evidence of all of whom this case about Dio's money
was fully established. Marcus Lucullus said the same thing,
that he had long ago known all the facts of the tyranny prac
tised on Dio, through the connexion of hospitality which
existed between them. What 1 Did Lucullus, who was at
that time in Macedonia, know all these things better than you,
0 Hortensius, who were at Rome ? you to whom Dio fled for
aid ] you who expostulated with Verres by letter in very
severe terms about the injuries done to Dio ? Is all this new
to you now, and unexpected ? is this the first time your ears
have heard of this crime 1 Did you hear nothing of it from
Dio, nothing from your own mother-in-law, that most admi
rable woman, Servilia, an ancient friend and connexion of
Dio's 1 Are not my witnesses ignorant of many circumstances
which you are acquainted with 1 Is it not owing, not to the
innocence of your client, but to the exception1 made by the
law, that I am prevented from summoning you as a witness
on my side on this charge ?
\The evidence of Marcus Lucullus, of Chlorus, of Dio is read.]
IX. Does not this Venereal man, who went forth from the
bosom of Chelidon to his province, appear to you to have got
a sufficiently large sum by means of the name of Verres ?
Listen now to a no less shamelessly false accusation in a case
where a smaller sum was involved. Sosippus and Epicrates
were brothers of the town of Agyrium ; their father died
twenty-two years ago, by whose will, if anything were done
wrongly in any point, there was to be a forfeiture of his pro
perty to Venus. In the twentieth year after his death, though
there had been in the interim so many prsetors, so many quaes
tors, and so many false accusers in the province, the inherit
ance was claimed from the brothers in the name of Venus.
Verres takes cognisance of the cause ; by the agency of
Volcatius he receives money from the two brothers, about
four hundred thousand sesterces. You have heard the evi
dence of many people already ; the brothers of Agyrium
1 It was forbidden by the Roman law, as by our own, for the advocate
to give e\'idence against his clients of matters which had come to his
knowledge by confidential communication.
226 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
gained their cause, but on such terms that they left the court
stripped and beggared.
X. Oh, but that money never came to Verres. What does
that defence mean 1 is that asserted in this case, or only put
out as a feeler 1 For to me it is quite a new light. Verres
set up the accusers ; Verres summoned the brother to appear
before him ; Verres heard the cause ; Verres gave sentence.
A vast sum was paid ; they who paid it gained the cause ;
and you argue in defence "that money was not paid to
Verres." I can help you ; my witnesses too say the same
thing ; they say they paid it to Volcatius. How did Volca-
tius acquire so much power as to get four hundred thousand
sesterces from two men '? Would any one have given Volca
tius, if he had come on his own account, one half-farthing ?
Let him come now, let him try ; no one will receive him in
his house. But I say more ; I accuse you of having received
forty millions of sesterces contrary to law ; and I deny that
you have ever accounted for one farthing of that money ; but
when money was paid for your decrees, for your orders, for
your decisions, the point to be inquired into was not into
whose hand it was paid, but by whose oppression it was ex
torted. Those chosen companions of yours were your hands ;
the prefects, the secretaries, the surgeons, the attendants, the
soothsayers, the criers, were your hands. The more each
individual was connected with you by any relationship, or
affinity, or intimacy, the more he was considered one of your
hands. The whole of that retinue of yours, which caused
more evil to Sicily than a hundred troops of fugitive slaves
would have caused, was beyond all question your hand. What
ever was taken by any one of these men, that must be con
sidered not only as having been given to you, but as having
been paid into your own hand. For if you, 0 judges, admit this
defence, " He did not receive it himself," you will put an end
to all judicial proceedings for extortion. For no criminal
will be brought before you so guilty as not to be able to avail
himself of that plea. Indeed, since Verres uses it, what
criminal will ever henceforward be found so abandoned as not
to be thought equal to Quintus Mucius in innocence by compa
rison with that man 1 And even now those who say this do
not appear to me to be defending Verres so much as trying,
in the instance of Verres, what licence of defence will be
III. AGAINST VERRES. 227
admitted in other cases. And with reference to this matter,
you, 0 judges, ought to take great care what you do. It con
cerns the chief interests of the republic, and the reputation of
our order, and the safety of the allies. For if we wish to be
thought innocent, we must not only show that we ourselves
are moderate, but that our companions are so too.
XI. First of all, we must take care to take those men with
us who will regard our credit and our safety. Secondly, if in
the selection of men our hopes have deceived us through
friendship for the persons, we must take care to punish them,
to dismiss them. We must always live as if we expected to
have to give an account of what we have been doing. This is
what was said by Africanus, a most kind-hearted man, (but
that kind-heartedness alone is really admirable which is exer
cised without any risk to a man's reputation, as it was by
him,) when an old follower of his, who reckoned himself one
of his friends, could not prevail on him to take him with him
into Africa as his prefect, and was much annoyed at it. " Do
not marvel," said he, " that you do not obtain this from me,
for I have been a long time begging a man to whom I believe
my reputation to be dear, to go with me as my prefect, and
as yet I cannot prevail upon him." And in truth there is
much more reason to beg men to go with us as our officers
into a province, if we wish to preserve our safety and our
honour, than to give men office as a favour to them ; but as
for you, when you were inviting your friends into the pro
vince, as to a place for plunder, and were robbing in company
with them, and by means of them, and were presenting them
in the public assembly with golden rings, did it never occur
to you that you should have to give an account, not only of
yourself, but of their actions also? When he had acquired
for himself these great and abundant gains from these causes
which he had determined to examine into himself with his
council — that is, with this retinue of his — then he invented an
infinite number of expedients for getting hold of a countless
amount of money.
XII. No one doubts that all the wealth of every man is
placed in the power of those men who allow1 trials to pro-
1 At Eome the praetor urbanus, in the provinces the propraetors and the
proconsuls, decided whether there was reason for an action at law, and if
they decided that there was, then they assigned judges to try the action.
228 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
ceed, and of those who sit as judges at the trials ; no one
doubts that none of us can retain possession of his house, of
his fiirm, or of his paternal property, if, when these are claimed
by any one of you, a rascally preetor, whose judgments no one
has the power of arresting, can assign any judge whom he
chooses, and if the worthless and corrupt judge gives any
sentence which the prsetor bids him give. But if this also
be added, that the prsetor assigns the trial to take place
according to such a formula, that even Lucius Octavius
Balbus, if he were judge, (a man of the greatest experience in
all that belongs to the law and to the duties of a judge,) could
not decide otherwise : suppose it ran in this way : — " Let
Lucius Octavius be the judge ; if it appears that the farm at
Capena, which is in dispute, belongs, according to the law of
the Roman people, to Publius Servilius, that farm must be
restored to Quintus Catulus," will not Lucius Octavius be
bound, as judge, to compel Publius Servilius to restore the
farm to Quintus Catulus, or to condemn him whom he ought
not to condemn ? The whole praetorian law was like that ;
the whole course of judicial proceedings in Sicily was like that
for three years, while Verres was praetor. His decrees were
like this : — " If he does not accept what you say that you
owe, accuse him ; if he claims anything, take him to prison."
He ordered Caius Fuficius, who claimed something, to be
taken to prison ; so he did Lucius Suetius and Lucius
Rucilius. His tribunals he formed in this way : — those who
were Roman citizens were to be judges, when Sicilians ought
to have been, according to their laws ; those who were
Sicilians were to be judges, when Romans1 should have been.
But that you may understand his whole system of judicial
proceedings, listen first to the laws of the Sicilians in such
cases, and then to the practices this man established.
XIII. The Sicilians have this law, — that if a citizen of any
town has a dispute with a fellow-citizen, he is to decide it in
his own town, according to the laws there existing ; if a
Sicilian has a dispute with a Sicilian of a different city, in
1 The text here is very much disputed, and is probably wholly corrupt.
1 have endeavoured to give what is certainly the general sense intended
to be conveyed; though it can scarcely be extracted from the Latin.
Grsevius reads, ..." Si Siculi essent, turn si eorum legibus . . ." printing
it all in large letters, as if they were the words of a decree of Verres.
III. AGAINST VERRES. 229
that case the praetor is to assign judges of that dispute,
according to the law of Publius Rupilius, which he enacted by
the advice of ten commissioners appointed to consider the
subject, and which the Sicilians call the Rupilian law. If an
individual makes a claim in a community, or a community
on an individual, the senate of some third city is assigned to
furnish the judges, as the citizens of the cities interested in.
the litigation are rejected as judges in such a case. If a
Roman citizen makes a claim on a Sicilian, a Sicilian judge is
assigned ; if a Sicilian makes a claim on a Roman citizen, a
Roman citizen is assigned as judge : in all other matters
judges are appointed selected from the body of Re/man citizens
dwelling in the place. In law-suits between the farmers and
the tax collectors, trials are regulated by the law about corn,
which they call Lex Hieronica. All these rights were not
only thrown into disorder while that man was prsetor, but
indeed were openly taken away from both the Sicilians and
from the Roman citizens. First of all, their own laws with
reference to one another were disregarded. If a citizen had a
dispute with another citizen, he either assigned any one as
judge whom it was convenient to himself to assign, crier,
soothsayer, or his own physician ; or if a tribunal was esta
blished by the laws, and the parties had come before one of
their fellow-citizens as the judge, that citizen was not allowed
to decide without control. For, listen to the edict issued by
this man, by which edict he brought every tribunal under his
own authority : " If any one had given a wrong decision,
he would examine into the matter himself; when he had
examined, he would punish." And when he did that, no one
doubted that when the judge thought that some one else was
going to sit in judgment on his decision, and that he should
be at the risk of his life in the matter, he would consider the
inclination of the man who he expected would presently be
judging in a matter affecting his own existence as a citizen. -
Judges selected from the Roman settlers there were none ;
none even of the traders in the cities were proposed as
judges. The crowd of judges which I am speaking of was the
retinue, not of Quintus Scsevola, (who, however, did not make
a practice of appointing judges from among his own fol
lowers,) but of Caius Verres. And what sort of a retinue do
you suppose it was when such a man as he was its chief'?
230 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
Vou see announced in the edict, " If the senate gives an
erroneous decision . . . ." I -will prove that, if at any time
a bench of judges was taken from the senate, that also gave
its decisions, through compulsion on his part, contrary to their
own opinions. There never was any selection of the j \idges
by lot, according to the Rupilian law, except when he had no
interest whatever in the case. The tribunals established in
the case of many disputes by the Lex Hieronica were all
abolished by a single edict ; no judges were appointed
selected from the settlers or from the traders. What great
power he had you see ; now learn how he exercised it.
XIV. Heraclius is the son of Hiero, a Syracusan; a man
among the very first for nobility of family, and, before Verres
came as prsetor, one of the most wealthy of the Syracusans ;
now a very poor man, owing to no other calamity but the
avarice and injustice of that man. An inheritance of at least
three millions of sesterces came to him by the will of his rela
tion Heraclius ; the house was full of silver plate exquisitely
carved, of abundance of embroidered robes, and of most valu
able slaves ; things in which who is ignorant of the insane
cupidity of that man ? The fact was a subject of common
conversation, that a great fortune had come to Heraclius,
that Heraclius would not only be rich, but that he would be
amply supplied with furniture, plate, robes and slaves. Verres,
too, hears this ; and at first he tries by the tricks and ma
noeuvres which he is so fond of, to get him to lend things to
him to look at, which he means never to return. After
wards he takes counsel from some Syracusans ; and they
were relations of his, whose wives too were not believed to
be entirely strangers to him, by name Cleomenes and ^Eschrio.
What influence they had with him, and on what disgraceful
reasons it was founded, you may understand from the rest
of the accusation. These men, as I say, give Verres advice.
They tell him that the property is a fine one, rich in every
sort of wealth ; and that Heraclius himself is a man advanc
ing in years, and not very active ; and that he has no patron
on whom he has any claim, or to whom he has any access
except the Marcelli ; that a condition was contained in the will
in which he was mentioned as heir, that he was to erect some
statues in the palaestra. We will contrive to produce people
from the paleestra to assert that they have not been erected
III. AGAINST VERRKS. 231
according to the terms of the will, and to claim the inherit
ance because they say that it is forfeited to the palaestra. The
idea pleased Verres. For he foresaw that, when such an in
heritance became disputed, and was claimed by process of law,
it was quite impossible for him not to get some plunder out
of it before it was done with. He approves of the plan ; he
advises them to begin to act as speedily as possible, and to
attack a man of that age, and disinclined to law-suits, with as
much bluster as possible.
XV. An action is brought in due form against Heraclius.
At first all marvel at the roguery of the accusation. After
a little, of those who knew Verres, some suspected, and some
clearly saw that he had cast his eyes on the inheritance. In
the mean time the day had arrived, on which he had an
nounced in his edict that, according to established usage, and
to the Rupilian law, he would assign judges at Syracuse. He
had come prepared to assign judges in this cause. Then
Heraclius points out to him that he cannot assign judges in
his cause that day, because the Rupilian law said that they
were not to be assigned till thirty days after the action was
commenced. The thirty days had not yet elapsed; Hera
clius hoped that, if he could avoid having them appointed
that day, Quintus Arrius, whom the province was eagerly
expecting, would arrive as successor to Verres before another
appointment could take place. He postponed appointing
judges in all suits, and fixed the first day for appointing
them that he legally could after the thirty days claimed by
Heraclius in his action had elapsed. When the day arrived,
he began to pretend that he was desirous to appoint the
judges. Heraclius comes with his advocates, and claims to
be allowed to have the cause between him and the men of
the palaestra, that is to say, with the Syracusan people,
tried by strict law. His adversaries demand that judges be
appointed to decide on that matter of those cities which were
in the habit of frequenting the Syracusan courts. Judges
were appointed, whomsoever Verres chose. Heraclius de
manded, on the other hand, that judges should be appointed
according to the provisions of the Rupilian law ; and that
no departure should be made from the established usage of
their ancestors, from the authority of the senate, and from the
rights of all the Sicilians.
232 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
XVI. Why need I demonstrate the licentious wickedness
of that Verres, in the administration of justice 1 Who of you
is not aware of it, from his administration in this city ? Who
ever, while he was prsetor, could obtain anything by law
against the will of Chelidon ] The province did not corrupt
that man, as it has corrupted some ; he was the same man
that he had been at Rome. When Heraclius said, what all
men well knew, that there was an established, form of law
among the Sicilians, by which causes between them were to
be tried ; that there was the Rupilian law, which Publius
Rupilius, the consul, had enacted, with the advice of ten
chosen commissioners ; that every praetor and consul in
Sicily had always observed this law. He said that he should
not appoint judges according to the provisions of the Rupilian
law. He appointed five judges who were most agreeable to
himself. What can you do with such a man as this 1 What
punishment can you find worthy of such licentiousness?
When it was prescribed to you by law, 0 most wicked and
most shameless man, in what way you were to appoint judges
among the Sicilians ; when the authority of a genera,! of the
Roman people, when the dignity of ten commissioners, men
of the highest rank, when a positive resolution of the senate
was against you, in obedience to which resolution Publius
Rupilius had established laws in Sicily by the advice of ten
commissioners ; when, before you came as prsetor every one
bad most strictly observed the Rupilian laws in all points, and
especially in judicial matters ; did you dare to consider so many
solemn circumstances as nothing in comparison with your own
plunder 1 Did you acknowledge no law ? Had you. no scru
ple 1 no regard for your reputation ? no fear of any judg
ment yourself? Was the authority of no one of any weight
with you 1 Was there no example which you chose to follow 1
But, I was going to say, when these five judges had been
appointed, by no law, according to no use, with none of the
proper ceremonies, with no drawing of lots, according to his
mere will, not to examine into the cause, but to give what
ever decision they were commanded, on that day nothing
more was done ; the parties are ordered to appear on the
day following.
XVII. In the meantime Heraclius, as he sees that it is all
a plot laid by the prsetor against his fortune, resolves, by the
III. AGAIKST VERRE3. 233
advice of his friends and relations, not to appear before the
court. Accordingly he flies from Syracuse that night, Verres
the next day, early in the morning, — for he had got up much
earlier than he ever did before, — orders the judges to be sum
moned. When he finds that Heraclius does not appear, he
begins to insist on their condemning Heraclius in his absence.
They expostulate with him, and beg him, if he pleases, to
adhere to the rule he had himself laid down, and not to
compel them to decide against the absent party in favour of
the party who was present, before the tenth hour. He agrees.
In the meantime both Verres himself began to be uneasy,
and his friends and counsellors began also to be a good deal
vexed at Heraclius' having fled. They thought that the con
demnation of an absent man, especially in a matter involving
so large a sum of money, would be a far more odious measure
than if he had appeared in court, and had there been con
demned. To this consideration was added the fact, that
because the judges had not been appointed in accordance with
the provisions of the Rupilian law, they saw that the affair
would appear much more base and more iniquitious. And
so, while he endeavours to correct this error, his covetousness
and dishonesty are made more evident. For he declares tiiat
he will not use those five judges ; he orders (as ought to have
been done at fii*st, according to the Rupilian law) Heraclius
to be summoned, and those who had brought the action
against him ; he says that he is going to appoint the judges
by lot, according to the Rupilian law. That which Heraclius
the day before could not obtain from him, though he begged
and entreated it of him with many tears, occurred to him the
next day of his own accord, and he recollected that he ought
to appoint judges according to the Rupilian law. He draws
the names of three out of the urn : he commands them to
condemn Heraclius in his absence. So they condemn him.
What was the meaning of that madness ? Did you think that
you would never have to give an account of your actions 'I
Did you think that such men as these would never hear of
these transactions'? Is such an inheritance to be claimed
without the slightest grounds for such a claim, in order to
become the plunder of the praetor ? is the name of the city
to be introduced ? is the base character of a false accuser to
be fixed upon an honoui'able state 1 And not this only, but
234 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
is the whole business to be conducted in such a manner that
there is to be not even the least appearance of justice kept
up ? For, in the name of the immortal gods, -what difference
does it make whether the praetor commands and by force
compels any one to abandon all his property, or passes a
sentence by which, without any trial, he must lose all his
fortune ?
XVIII. In truth you cannot deny that you ought to have
appointed judges according to the provisions of the Kupilian
law, especially when Heraclius demanded it. If you say that
you departed from the law with the consent of Heraclius, you
will entangle yourself, you will be hampered by the state
ment you make in your own defence. For if that was the
case, why, in the first place, did he refuse to appear, when he
might have had the judges chosen from the proper body which
he demanded? Secondly, why, after his flight, did you ap
point other judges by drawing lots, if you had appointed
those who had been before appointed, with the consent of
each party? Thirdly, Marcus Postumius, the qusestor, ap
pointed all the other judges in the market-place; you ap
pointed the judges in this case alone. However, by these
means, some one will say, he gave that inheritance to the
Syracusan people. In the first place, even if I were disposed
to grant that, still you must condemn him ; for it is not per
mitted to us with impunity to rob one man for the purpose
of giving to another. But you will find that he despoiled
that inheritance himself without making much secret of his
proceedings ; that the Syracusan people, indeed, had a great
deal of the odium, a great deal of the infamy, but that another
had the profit; that a few Syracusans, those who now say that
they have come in obedience to the public command of their
city, to bear testimony in his favour, were then sharers in the
plunder, and are come hither now, not for the purpose of
speaking in his favour, but to assist in the valuation of the
damages which they claim from him. After he was con
demned in his absence, possession is given to the palaestra of
the Syracusans, — that is, to the Syracusan people,— not only of
that inheritance which was in question, and which was of the
value of three millions of sesterces, but also of all Heraclius's
own paternal property, which was of equal amount. Whafc
sort of a partnership is that of yours? You take away a
III. AGAINST VERRES. 235
man's inheritance, which had come to him from a relation,
had come by will, had come in accordance with the laws; all
which property, he, who made the will, had made over to this
Heraclius to have and to use as he would, some time before he
died, — of which inheritance, as he had died some time before
you became praetor, there had been no dispute, nor had any
one made any mention of it.
XIX. However, be it so ; take away inheritances from rela
tions, give them to people at the palaestra; plunder other
people's property in the name of the state ; overturn laws,
wills, the wishes of the dead, the rights of the living : had
you any right to deprive Heraclius of his paternal property
also? And yet as soon as he fled, how shamelessly, how un-
disguisedly, how cruelly, 0 ye immortal gods, was his property
seized ! How disastrous did that business seem to Heraclius,
how profitable to Verres, how disgraceful to the Syracusans,
how miserable to everybody ! For the first measures which
are taken are to carry whatever chased plate there was among
that property to Verres : as for all Corinthian vessels, all em
broidered robes, no one doubted that they would be taken
and seized, and carried inevitably to his house, not only out
of that house, but out of every house in the whole province.
He took away whatever slaves he pleased, others he distri
buted to his friends : an auction was held, in which his invin
cible train was supreme everywhere. But this is remarkable.
The Syracusans who presided over what was called the collec
tion of this property of Heraclius, but what was in reality the
division of it, gave in to the senate their accounts of the
whole business; they said that many pairs of goblets, many
silver water-ewers, much valuable embroidered cloth, and
many valuable slaves, had been presented to Verres; they
stated how much money had been given to each person by
his order. The Syracusans groaned, but still they bore it.
Suddenly this item is read, — that two hundred and fifty thou
sand sesterces were given to one person by command of the
praetor. A great outcry arises from every one, not only from
every virtuous man, nor from those to whom it had always
seemed scandalous that the goods of a private individual
should be taken from him, by the greatest injustice, under the
name of being claimed by the people, but even the very chief
instigators of the wrong, and in some degree the partners in
236 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
the rapine and plunder, began to cry out that the man ought
to have his inheritance for himself. So great an uproar arose
in the senate-house, that the people ran to see what had
happened.
XX. The matter being known to the whole assembly, is
soon reported at Verres's house. The man was in a rage with
those who had read out the accounts, — an enemy to all who
had raised the outcry ; he was in fury with rage and passion.
But he was at that moment unlike himself. You know the
appearance of the man, you know his audacity ; yet at that
moment he was much disquieted by the reports circulated
among the people, by their outcry, and by the impossibility
of concealing the robbery of so large a sum of money. When
he came to himself, he summoned the Syracusans to him,
because he could not deny that money had been given him
by them ; he did not go to a distance to look for some one,
(in which case he would not have been able to prove it,)
but he took one of his nearest relations, a sort of second son,1
and accused him of having stolen the money. He declared
that he would make him refund it ; and he, after he heard
that, had a proper regard for his dignity, for his age, and for
his noble birth. He addressed the senate on the subject ; he
declared to them that he had nothing to do with the business.
Of Verres he said what all saw to be true, and he said it
plainly enough. Therefore, the Syracusans afterwards erected
him a statue ; and he himself, as soon as he could, left Verres,
and departed from the province. And yet they say that this
man complains sometimes of his misery in being weighed
down, not by his own offences and crimes, but by those of hia
friends. You had the province for three years ; your son-in-
law elect, a young man, was with you one year. Your com
panions, gallant men, who were your lieutenants, left you the
first year. One lieutenant, Publius Tadius, who remained,
was not much with you ; but if he had been always with you,
he would with the greatest care have spared your reputation,
and still more would he have spared his own. What pretence
have you for accusing others? What reason have you for
thinking that you can, I will not say, shift the blame of your
actions on another, but that you can divide it with another ?
That two hundred and fifty thousand sesterces are refunded
1 He was in fact his son-in-la\v elect.
III. AGAINST VEERES. 237
to the Syracusans, and how they afterwards returned to him
by the backdoor, I will make evident to you, 0 judges, by
documents and by witnesses.
XXI. And akin to this iniquity and rascality of that fellow,
by which plunder, consisting of a part of that property, came
to many of the Syracusans against the will of the people and
senate of Syracuse, are those crimes which were committed by
the instrumentality of Theomnastus, and Jilschrio, and Diony-
sodorus, and Cleomenes, utterly against the wish of the city ;
first of all in plundering the whole city, of which matter I
have arranged to speak in another part of my accusation, so
that, by the assistance of those men whom I have named, he
carried off all the statues, all the works in ivory out of the
sacred temples, all the paintings from every place, and even
whatever images of the gods he fancied ; secondly, that in the
senate-house of the Syracusans, which they call fiovXtyrriowv,
a most honourable place, and of the highest reputation in the
eyes of the citizens, where there is a brazen statue of Marcus
Marcellus himself, (who preserved and restored that place to
the Syracusans, though by the laws of war and victory he
might have taken it away,) those men erected a gilt statue to
him and another to his son ; in order that, as long as the
recollection of that man remained, the Syracusan senate
might never be in the senate-house without lamentation and
groaning. By means of the same partners in his injuries,
and thefts, and bribes, during his command the festival of
Marcellus at Syracuse is abolished, to the great grief of the
city ; — a festival which they both gladly paid as due to the
recent services done them by Caius Marcellus, and also most
gladly gave to the family and name and race of the Mar-
celli. Mithridates in Asia, when he had occupied the whole
of that province, did not abolish the festival of Muoius.1
An enemy, and he too an enemy in other respects, only too
savage and barbarous, still would not violate the honour of
a name which had been consecrated by holy ceremonies.
You forbade the Syracusans to grant one day of festival to
the Marcelli, to whom they owed the being able to cele
brate other days of festival. Oh, but you gave them
1 In honour of Quiutus Mucius Scsevola, who had been praetor in
that province, and had established a high character for lenity and incor
ruptibility.
238 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
a splendid day instead of it • you allowed them to cele
brate a festival in honour of Verres, and issue contracts
for providing all that would be necessary for sacrifices and
banquets on that day for many years. But in such an
enormous superfluity of impudence as that man's, it seems
better to pass over some things, that we may not appear to
strain every point, — that we may not appear to have no
feelings but those of indignation. For time, voice, lungs,
would fail me, if I wished now to cry out how miserable and
scandalous it is, that there should be a festive day in his
name among those people, who think themselves utterly
ruined by that man's conduct. 0 splendid Verrine festival !
whither have you gone that you have not brought the people
cause to remember that day 1 In truth, what house, what
city, what temple even have you ever approached without
leaving it emptied and ruined. Let the festival, then, be
fitly called Verrine,1 and appear to be established, not from
recollection of your name, but of your covetousness and your
natural disposition.
XXII. See, 0 judges, how easily injustice, and the habit of
doing wrong creeps on ; see how difficult it is to check. There
is a town called Bidis, an insignificant one indeed, not far
from Syracuse. By far the first man of that city is a man of
the name of Epicrates. An inheritance of five hundred
thousand sesterces had come to him from some woman who
•was a relation of his, and so near a relation, that even if she
had died intestate, Epicrates must have been her heir according
to the laws of Bidis. The transaction at Syracuse which I
have just mentioned was fresh in men's memories, — the affair
I mean of Heraclius the Syracusan, who would not have lost
his property if an inheritance had not come to him. To this
Epicrates too an inheritance had come, as I have said. His
enemies began to consider that he too might be easily turned
out of his property by the same praetor as Heraclius had been
stripped of his by ; they plan the affair secretly; they suggest
it to Verres by his emissaries. The cause is arranged, so that
the people belonging to the palaestra at Bidis are to claim his
inheritance from Epicrates, just as the men of the Syracusan
palaestra had claimed his from Heraclius. You never saw a
praetor so devoted to the interests of the palcestra. But he
1 There is a recurrence here to the pun on the word verres, a boar.
III. AGAINST VERRES. 239
defended the men of the palaestra in such a way that he him
self came off with his wheels all the better greased. In this
instance Verres, as soon as he foresaw what would happen,
ordered eighty thousand sesterces to be paid to one of his
friends. The matter could not be kept entirely secret.
Epicrates is informed of it by one of those who were con
cerned in it. At first he began to disregard and despise it,
because the claim made against him had actually nothing in
it about which a doubt could be raised. Afterwards when he
thought of Heraclius, and recollected the licentiousness of
Verres, he thought it better to depart secretly from the pro
vince. He did so ; he went to Rhegium.
XXIII. And when this was known, they began to fret who
had paid the money. They thought that nothing could be
done in the absence of Epicrates. For Heraclius indeed had
been present when the judges were appointed ; but in the
case of this man, who had departed before any steps had been
taken in the action, before indeed there had been any open
mention made of the dispute, they thought that nothing could
be done. The men go to Rhegium ; they go to Epicrates ;
they point out to him, what indeed he knew, that they had
paid eighty thousand sesterces ; they beg him to make up to
them the money they themselves were out of pocket ; they
tell him he may take any security from them that he likes,
that none of them will go to law with Epicrates about that
inheritance. Epicrates reproaches the men at great length
and with great severity, and dismisses them. They return,
from Rhegium to Syracuse ; they complain to many people,
as men in such a case are apt to do, that they have paid
eighty thousand sesterces for nothing. The affair got abroad ;
it began to be the topic of every one's conversation. Verres
repeats his old Syracusan trick. He says he wants to examine
into that affair of the eighty thousand sesterces. He summons
many people before him. The men of Bidis say that they
gave it to Volcatius ; they do not add that they had done so
by his command. He summons Volcatius; he orders the
money to be refunded. Volcatius with great equanimity
brings the money, like a man who was sure to lose nothing
by it ; he returns it to them in the sight of many people ;
the men of Bidis carry the money away. Some one will say,
" What fault then do you find with Verres in this, who not
240 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
only is not a thief himself, but who did not even allow any
one else to be one V Listen a moment. Now you shall see
that this money which was just now seen to leave his house
by the main road returned back again by a by-path. What
came next ? Ought not the preetor, having inquired into the
case with the bench of judges, when he had found out that a
companion of his own, with the object of corruptly swaying
the law, the sentence, and the bench, (a matter in which the
reputation of the praetor and even his condition as a free
citizen were at stake,) had received money, and that the men
of Bidis had given it, doing injury to the fair fame and for
tune of the preetor; — ought he not, I say, to have punished both
him who had taken the money, and those who had given it ?
You who had determined to punish those who had given an
erroneous decision, which is often done out of ignorance, do
you permit men to escape with impunity who thought that
money might be received or be paid for the purpose of
influencing your decree, your judicial decision 1 And yet
that same Volcatius remained with you, although he was a
Roman knight, after he had such disgrace put upon him.
XXIV. For what is more disgraceful for a well-born man —
what more unworthy of a free man, than to be compelled by
the magistrate before a numerous assembly to restore what
has been stolen ; and if he had been of the disposition of
which not only a Roman knight, but every free man ought
to be, he would not have been able after that to look you in
the face. He would have been a foe, an enemy, after he bad
been subjected to such an insult ; unless, indeed, it had been
done through collusion with you, and he had been serving
your reputation rather than his own. And how great a friend
he not only was to you then as long as he was with you in the
province, but how great a friend he is even now, when you
have long since been deserted by all the rest, you know your
self, and we can conceive. But is this the only argument that
nothing was done without his knowledge, that Volcatius was
not offended with him 1 that he punished neither Volcatius
nor the men of Bidis 1 It is a great proof, but this is the
greatest proof of all, that to those very men of Bidis, with
whom he ought to have been angry, as being the men by
whom he found out that his decree had been attempted to be
influenced by bribes; because they could do nothing against
III. AGAINST VERRES. 241
Epicrates according to law, even if he were present, — to these
very men, I say, he not only gave that inheritance which had
come to Epicrates, but, as in the case of Heraclius of Syrar
cuse, so too in this case, (which was even rather more atro
cious than the other, because Epicrates had actually never had
any action brought against him at all,) he gave them all his
paternal property and fortune. For he showed that if any
one made a demand of any thing from an absent person, he
would hear the cause, though without any precedent for so
doing. The men of Bidis appear — they claim the inherit
ance. The agents of Epicrates demand that he would either
refer them to their own laws, or else appoint judges, in accord
ance with the provisions of the Rupilina law. The adver
saries did not dare to say anything against this ; no escape
from it could be devised. They accuse the man of having
fled for the purpose of cheating them. They demand to be
allowed to take possession of his property. Epicrates did not
owe a farthing to any one. His friends said that, if any one
claimed anything from him, they would stand the trial them
selves, and that they would give security to satisfy the
judgment.
XXV. When the whole business was getting cool, by
Verres's instigation they began to accuse Epicrates of having
tampered with the public documents ; a suspicion from which
he was far removed. They demand a trial on that charge.
His friends began to object that no new proceeding, that no
trial affecting his rank and reputation, ought to be instituted
while he was absent ; and at the same time they did not cease
to reiterate their demands that Verres should refer them to
their own laws. He, having now got ample room for false
accusation, when he sees that there is any point on which his
friends refused to appear for Epicrates in his absence, declares
that he will appoint a trial on that charge before any other.
When all saw plainly that not only that money which had (to
make a pretence) been sent from his house, had returned back
to it, but that he had afterwards received much more money,
the friends of Epicrates ceased to argue in his defence. Verres
ordered the men of Bidis to take possession of all his pro
perty, and to keep it for themselves. Besides the five hun
dred thousand sesterces which the inheritance amounted to,
his own previous fortune amounted to fifteen hundred thou-
R
242 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
sand. Was the affair planned out in this way from the be
ginning ? Was it completed in this way ? Is it a very trifling
sum of money ? Is Verres such a man as to be likely to
have done all this which I have related for nothing ?
Now, 0 judges, hear a little about the misery of the Sici
lians. Both Heraclius the Syracusan, and Epicrates of Bidis,
being stripped of all their property, came to Rome. They
lived at Rome nearly two years in mourning attire, with
unshaven beard and hair. When Lucius Metellus went to
the province, then they also go back with Metellus, bearing
with them letters of high recommendation. As soon as Me
tellus came to Syracuse he rescinded both the sentences — the
sentence in the case of Epicrates, and that against Heraclius.
In the property of both of them there was nothing which
could be restored, except what was not able to be moved from
its place.
XXVI. Metellus had acted admirably on his first arrival, in
rescinding and making of no effect all the unjust acts of that
man which he could rescind. He had ordered Heraclius to
be restored to his property ; he was not restored. Every
Syracusan senator who was accused by Heraclius he ordered
to be imprisoned. And on this ground many were im
prisoned. Epicrates was restored at once. Other sentences
which had been pronounced at Lilybseum, at Agrigentum,
and at Panormus, were reviewed and reformed. Metellus
showed that he did not mean to attend to the returns which
had been made while Verres was prsetor. The tithes which
he had sold in a manner contrary to the Lex Hieronica, he
said that he would sell according to that law. All the actions
of Metellus went to the same point, so that he seemed to be
remodelling the whole of Verres's prsetorship. As soon as I
arrived in Sicily, he changed his conduct. A man of the
name of Letilius had come to him two days before, a man not
unversed in literature, so he constantly used him as his secre
tary. He had brought him many letters, and, among them,
one from home which had changed the whole man. On a
sudden he began to say that he wished to do everything to
please Verres ; that he was connected with him by the ties of
both friendship and relationship. All men wondered that
this should now at last have occurred to him, after he had
injured him by so many actions and so many decisions.
III. AGAINST VERRES. 243
Some thought that Letilius had come as an ambassador from
Verres, to put him in mind of their mutual interests, their
friendship, and their relationship. From that time he began
to solicit the cities for testimony in favour of Verres, and not
only to try to deter the witnesses against him by threats,
but even to detain them by force. And if I had not by my
arrival checked his endeavours in some degree, and striven
among the Sicilians, by the help of Glabrio's letters and of
the law, I should not have been able to bring so many wit
nesses into this court.
XXVII. But, as I began to say, remark the miseries of the
Sicilians. Heraclius, whom I have mentioned, and Epicrates
came forward a great distance to meet me, with all their
friends. When I came to Syracuse, they thanked me with
tears ; they wished to leave Syracuse, and go to Rome in my
company : because I had many other towns left which I
wanted to go to, I arranged with the men on what day they
were to meet me at Messana. They sent a messenger to me
there, that they were detained by the praetor. And though
I summoned them formally to attend and give evidence, —
though I gave in their names to Metellus, — though they were
very eager to come, having been treated with the most
enormous injustice, they have not arrived yet. These are the
rights which the allies enjoy now, not to be allowed even to
complain of their distresses.
You have already heard the evidence of Heraclius of
Centuripa, a most virtuous and noble young man, from
whom a hundred thousand sesterces were claimed by a
fraudulent and false accusation. Verres, by means of penalties
and securities1 exacted, contrived to extort three hundred
thousand ; and the sentence which had been given in favour
of Heraclius, in the affairs about which security had been
given, he set aside, because a citizen of Centuripa had acted
as judge between two of his fellow-citizens, and he said that
lie had given a false decision ; he forbade him to appear in the
senate, and deprived him by an interdict of all the privileges
1 The compromissum was money deposited by both parties as a secu
rity for their obeying the decision of the judge, " though the same term
was also employed to express the engagement by which parties agreed
to settle their differences by arbitration, without the intervention of the
praetor."— Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 530, v. Judex.
244 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
of citizens and of access to all public places. If any one
struck him, he announced that he would take no cognisance
of the injury ; that if any claim were made on him, he would
appoint a judge from his own retinue, but that he would not
allow him an action on any ground whatever. And his
authority in the province had just this weight, that no one
did strike him, though the pra3tor in his province gave every
one leave by word, and in reality incited them to do so ; nor
did any one claim anything of him, though he had given
licence to false accusation by his authority ; yet that heavy
mark of ignominy was attached to the man as long as Verres
remained in the province. After this fear had been impressed
on the judges, in a manner unexampled and wholly without
precedent, do you suppose that any matter was decided in
Sicily except according to his will and pleasure 1 Does this
appear to have been the only effect of it, (which effect, how
ever, it had,) to take his money from Heraclius ? or was not
this also the object, as the means by which the greatest
plunder was to be got, — to bring, under pretence of judicial
decision, the property and fortune of every one into the
power of that one man 1
XXVIII. But why should I seek out every separate trans
action and cause in the trials which took place on capital
charges 1 Out of many, which are all nearly alike, I will
select those which seem to go beyond all the others in ras
cality. There was a man of Halicya, named Sopater, among
the first men of his state for riches and high character. He,
having been accused by his enemies before Caius Sacerdos the
prsetor, on a capital charge, was easily acquitted. The same
enemies again accused this same Sopater on the same charge
before Caius Verres when he had come as successor to Sacerdos.
The matter appeared trifling to Sopater, both because he was
innocent, and because he thought that Verres would never
dare to overturn the decision of Sacerdos. The defendant is
cited to appear. The cause is heard at Syracuse. Those
charges are brought forward by the accusers which had been
already previously extinguished, not only by the defence, but
also by the decision. Quintus Minucius, a Roman knight,
among the first for a high and honourable reputation, and not
unknown to you, 0 judges, defended the cause of Sopater.
There was nothing in the cause which seemed possible to bo
III. AGAINST VERRES. 245
feared, or even to be doubted about at all. In the meantime
that same Timarchides, that fellow's attendant and freedman,
•who is, as you have learnt by many witnesses at the former
hearing, his agent and manager in all affairs of this sort,
comes to Sopater, and advises him not to trust too much to
the decision of Sacerdos and the justice of his cause; he tells
him that his accusers and enemies have thoughts of giving
money to the praetor, but that the prsetor would rather take
it to acquit; and at the same time, that he had rather, if it
were possible, not rescind a decision of his predecessor.
Sopater, as this happened to him quite suddenly and unex
pectedly, was greatly perplexed, and had no answer ready to
make to Timarchides, except that he would consider what he
had best do in such a case ; and at the same time he told him
that he was in great difficulties respecting money matters.
Afterwards he consulted with his friends; and as they ad
vised him to purchase an acquittal, he came to Timarchides.
Having explained his difficulties to him, he brings the man
down to eighty thousand sesterces, and pays him that money.
XXIX. When the cause came to be heard, all who were
defending Sopater were without any fear or any anxiety. No
crime had been committed; the matter had been decided;
Verres had received the money. Who could doubt how it
would turn out? The matter is not summed up that day;
the court breaks up; Timarchides comes a second time to
Sopater. He says that his accusers were promising a much
larger sum to the praetor than what he had given, and that if
he were wise he would consider what he had best do. The
man, though he was a Sicilian, and a defendant — that is to say,
though he had little chance of obtaining justice — and was in
an unfortunate position, still would not bear with or listen to
Timarchides any longer. Do, said he, whatever you please;
I will not give any more. And this, too, was the advice of
his friends and defenders; and so much the more, because
Verres, however he might conduct himself on the trial, still
had with him on the bench some honourable men of the
Syracusan community, who had also been on the bench with
Sacerdos when this same Sopater had been acquitted. They
considered that it was absolutely impossible for the same men,
who had formerly acquitted Sopater, to condemn him now on
the same charge, supported by the same witnesses. And so,
246 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
•with this one hope they came before the court. And when
they came thither, when the same men came in numbers on
the bench who were used to sit there, and when the whole
defence of Sopater rested on this hope, namely, on the num
ber and dignity of the bench of judges, and on the fact of
their being, as I have said before, the same men who had be
fore acquitted Sopater of the same charge, mark the open
rascality and audacity of the man, not attempted to be dis
guised, I will not say under any reason, but with even the
least dissimulation. He orders Marcus Petilius, a Roman
knight, whom he had with him on the bench, to attend to a
private cause in which he was judge. Petilius refused, be
cause Verres himself was detaining his friends whom he had
wished to have with him on the bench. He, liberal man, said
that he did not wish to detain any of the men who preferred
being with Petilius. And so they all go ; for the rest also
prevail upon him not to detain them, saying that they wished
to appear in favour of one or other of the parties who were
concerned in that trial. And so he is left alone with his most
worthless retinue. Minucius, who was defending Sopater, did
not doubt that Verres, since he had dismissed the whole bench,
would not proceed with the investigation of his cause that
day ; when all of a sudden he is ordered to state his case. He
answers, " To whom 1 " " To me," says Verres, " if I appear
to you of sufficient dignity to try the cause of a Sicilian, a
Greek." " Certainly," says he, " you are of sufficient dignity,
but I wish for the presence of those men who were present
before, and were acquainted with the case." "State your
case," says he ; " they cannot be present." " For in truth,"
says Quintus Minucius, " Petilius begged me also to be with
him on the bench ; " and at the same time he began to leave
his seat as counsel. Verres, in a rage, attacks him with pretty
violent language, and even began to threaten him severely,
for bringing such a charge, and trying to excite such odium
against him.
XXX. Minucius, who lived as a merchant at Syracuse, in
such a way as always to bear in mind his rights and his dig
nity, and who knew that it became him not to increase his
property in the province at the expense of any portion of his
liberty, gave the man such answer as seemed good to him,
and as the occasion and the cause required. He said that he
III. AGAINST VERRES. 247
would not speak in defence of his client when the bench of
judges was sent away and dismissed. And so he left the bar.
And all the other friends and advocates of Sopater, except the
Sicilians, did the same. Verres, though he is a man of incre
dible effrontery and audacity, yet when he was thus suddenly
left alone got frightened and agitated. He did not know what
to do, or which way to turn. If he adjourned the investiga
tion at that time, he knew that when those men were present,
whom he had got rid of for the time, Sopater would be acquit
ted ; but if he condemned an unfortunate and innocent man,
(while he himself, the praetor, was without any colleagues, and
the defendant without any counsel or patron,) and rescinded
the decision of Caius Sacerdos, he thought that he should not be
able to withstand the unpopularity of such an act. So he
was quite in a fever with perplexity. He turned himself every
way, not only as to his mind, but also as to his body ; so that
all who were present could plainly see that fear and covetous-
ness were contending together in his heart. There was a great
crowd of people present, there was profound silence, and eager
expectation which way his covetousness was going to find
vent. His attendant Timarchides was constantly stooping
down to his ear. Then at last he said, " Come, state your
case." Sopater began to implore him by the good faith of
gods and man, to hear the cause in company with the rest of
the bench. He orders the witnesses to be summoned instantly.
One or two of them give their evidence briefly. No questions
are asked. The crier proclaims that the case is closed. Verres,
as if he were afraid that Petilius, having either finished or
adjourned the private cause on which he was engaged, might
return to the bench with the rest, jumps down in haste from
his seat ; he condemned an innocent man, one who had been
acquitted by Caius Sacerdos, without hearing him in his
defence, by the joint sentence of a secretary, a physician, and
a soothsayer.
XXXI. Keep, pray keep that man in the city, 0 judges.
Spare him and preserve him, that you may have a man to
assist you in judging causes; to declare his opinion in the
senate on questions of war and peace, without any covetous
desires. Although, indeed, we and the Roman people have
less cause to be anxious as to what his opinion in the senate
is likely to be : for what will be his authority ? When will
248 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
he have either the daring or the power to deliver his opinion ?
When will a man of such luxury and such indolence ever
attempt to mount up to the senate-house except in the month
of February I1 However, let him come ; let him vote war
against the Cretans, liberty to the Byzantines ; let him call
Ptolemy king ; let him say and think everything which Hor-
tensius wishes him. These things do not so immediately
concern us — have not such immediate reference to the risk of
our lives, or to the peril of our fortunes.
What really is of vital importance, what is formidable, what
is to be dreaded by every virtuous man, is, that if through any
influence this man escapes from this trial, he must be among
the judges ; he must give his decision on the lives of Roman
citizens ; he must be standard-bearer in the army of that
man 2 who wishes to possess undisputed sway over our courts
of justice. This the Roman people refuses; this it will never
endure ; the whole people raises an outcry, aud gives you
leave, if you are delighted with these men, if you wish from
such a set to add splendour to your order, and an ornament
to the senate-house, to have that fellow among you as a
senator, to have him even as a judge in your own cases, if you
choose ; but men who are not of your body, men to whom
the admirable Cornelian laws do not give the power of object
ing to more than three judges, do not choose that this man,
so cruel, so wicked, so infamous should sit as judge in matters
in which they are concerned.
XXXII. In truth, if that is a wicked action, (which ap
pears to me to be of all actions the most base, and the most
wicked,) to take money to influence a decision in a court
of law, to put up one's good faith and religion to auction ;
how much more wicked, flagitious, and scandalous is it, to
condemn a man from whom you have taken money to
acquit him 1 — so that the prsetor does not even act up to the
customs of robbers, for there is honour among thieves. It
is a sin to take money from a defendant ; how much more to
take it from an accuser ! how much more wicked still to take
1 In the month of February, as has been said before, the senate gave
audience to the deputies from foreign nations ; and these deputies were
accustomed to bring rich presents to the senators who favoured their
respective nations.
2 Hortensius is meant here.
III. AGAINST VERRES. 249
it from both parties ! When you had put up your good faith
to auction in the province, he had the most weight with you
who gave you the most money. — That was natural : perhaps
some time or other some one else may have done something
of the same sort. But when you had already disposed of your
good faith and of your scruples to the one party, and had
received the money, and had afterwards sold the very same
articles to his adversary for a still higher price, are you going
to cheat both, and to decide as you please 1 and not even to
give back the money to the party whom you have deceived?
What is the use of speaking to me of Bulbus, of Stalenus 1 '
What monster of this sort, what prodigy of wickedness have
we ever heard of or seen, who would first sell his decision to
the defendant, and afterwards decide in favour of the accuser ?
who would get rid of, and dismiss from the bench honourable
men who were acquainted with the cause ; would by himself
alone condemn a defendant, who had been acquitted once,
from whom he had taken money, and would not restore him
his money ? — Shall we have this man on the list of judges t
Shall he be named as judge in the second 'Senatorial decury ?
Shall he be the judge of the lives of free men ? Shall a judi
cial tablet be entrusted to him, which he will mark not
only with wax, but with blood too if it be made worth his
while 1
XXXIII. For what of all these things does he deny having
done ? That, perhaps, which he must deny or else be silent,
— the having taken the money 1 Why should he not deny
it 1 But the Roman knight who defended Sopater, who was
present at all his deliberations and at every transaction,
Quintus Minucius, says on his oath that the money was paid ;
he says on his oath that Timarchides said that a greater sum
was being offered by the accusers. All the Sicilians will say
the same ; all the citizens of Halicya will say the same ;
even the young son of Sopater will say the same, who by that
most cruel man has been deprived of his innocent father and
of his father's property. But if I cannot make the case plain,
as far as the money is concerned, by evidence, can you deny
this, or will you now deny, that after you had dismissed the
1 Bulbus and Stalenus had been judges in the action between Cluen-
tius and Oppianicus, which has b ?en already mentioned, and had been
convicted of corruption in that trial.
250 CICERO'S OEATIONS.
rest of the judges, after those excellent men who had sat on
the bench with Caius Sacerdos, and who were used to sit there
with you, had been got rid of, you by yourself decided a mat
ter which had been decided before 1 — that the man, whom
Caius Sacerdos, assisted by a bench of colleagues, after an
investigation of the case, acquitted, you, without any bench of
colleagues, without investigating the case, condemned 1 When
you have confessed this, which was done openly in the forum
at Syracuse, before the eyes of the whole province ; then
deny, if you like, that you received money. You will be very
likely to find a man, when he sees these things which were
done openly, to ask what you did secretly ; or to doubt
whether he had better believe my witnesses or your defenders.
I have already said, 0 judges, that I shall not enumerate all
that fellow's actions which are of this sort ; but that I. .shall
select those which are the most remarkable.
XXXIV. Listen now to another remarkable exploit of his,
one that has already been mentioned in many places, and one
of such a sort that every possible crime seems to be compre
hended in that one. Listen carefully, for you will find that
this deed had its origin in covetousness, its growth in lust, its
consummation and completeness in cruelty. Sthenius, the
man who is sitting by us, is a citizen of Thermoe, long since
known to many by his eminent virtue and his illustrious
birth, and now known to all men by his own misfortune and
the unexampled injuries he has received from that man.
Verres having often enjoyed his hospitality, and having not
only stayed often with him at Thermse, but having almost
dwelt with him there, took away from him. out of his house
everything which could in any uncommon degree delight the
mind or eyes of any one. In truth, Sthenius from his youth
had collected such things as these with more than ordinary
diligence ; elegant furniture of brass, made at Delos and at
Corinth, paintings, and even a good deal of elegantly wrought
silver, as far as the wealth of a citizen of Thermse could afford.
And these things, when he was in Asia as a young man, he
had collected diligently, as I said, not so much for any plea
sure to himself, as for ornaments against the visits of Koman
citizens, his own friends and connexions, whenever he invited
them. But after Verres got them all, some by begging for
them, some by demanding them, and some by boldly taking
III. AGAINST VEERES. 25
them, Sthenius bore it as well as he could, but he was
affected with unavoidable indignation in his mind, at that
fellow having rendered his house, which had been so beauti
fully furnished and decorated, naked and empty ; still he told
his indignation to no one. He thought he must bear the in
juries of the prsetor in silence — those of his guest with calm
ness. Meantime that man, with that covetousness of his
which was now notorious and the common talk of every one,
as he took a violent fancy to some exceedingly beautiful and
very ancient statues at Thermae placed in the public place,
began to beg of Sthenius to promise him his countenance,
and to aid him in taking them away. But Sthenius not only
refused, but declared to him that it was utterly impossible
that most ancient statues, memorials of Publius Africanus,
should ever be taken away out of the town of the Ther-
mitani, as long as that city and the empire of the Eoman
people remained uninjured.
XXXV. Indeed, (that you may learn at the same time both
the humanity and the justice of Publius Africanus,) the
Carthaginians had formerly taken the town of Himera, one
of the first towns in Sicily for renown and for beauty. Scipio,
as he thought it a thing worthy of the Roman people, that,
after the war was over, our allies should recover their pro
perty in consequence of our victory, took care, after Carthage
had been taken, that everything which he could manage
should be restored to all the Sicilians. As Himera had been
destroyed, those citizens whom the disasters of the war had
spared had settled at Thermae, on the border of the same
district, and not far from their ancient town. They thought
that they were recovering the fortune and dignity of their
fathers, when those ornaments of their ancestors were being
placed in the town of Thermae. There were many statues of
brass ; among them a statue of Himera herself, of marvellous
beauty, made in the shape and dress of a woman, after the
name of the town and of the river. There was also a statue
of the poet Stesichorus, aged, stooping, — made, as men think,
with the most exceeding skill, — who was, indeed, a citizen
of Himera, but who both was and is in the highest renown
and estimation over all Greece for his genius. These things
he coveted to a degree of madness. There is also, which I
had almost passed over, a certain she-goat made, as even we
252 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
\vho are unskilled in these matters can judge, with wonderful
skill and beauty. These, and other works of art, Scipio had
not thrown away like a fool, in order that an intelligent man
like Verres might have an opportunity of carrying them
away, but he had restored them to the people of Thermae ;
not that he himself had not gardens, or a suburban villa, or
';some place or other where he could put them ; but, if he had
i taken them home, they would not long have been called
Scipio's, but theirs to whom they had come by his death.
1 Now they are placed in such places that it seems to me they
will always seem to be Scipio's, and so they are called.
XXXVI. When that fellow claimed those things, and the
subject was mooted in the senate, Sthenius resisted his claim
most earnestly, and urged many arguments, for he is among
the first men in all Sicily for fluency of speech. He said
that it was more honourable for the men of Thermae to
abandon their city than to allow the memorials of their an
cestors, the spoils of their enemies, the gifts of a most illus
trious man, the proofs of their alliance and friendship with
the Roman people, to be taken away out of their city. The
minds of all were moved. No one was found who did not
agree that it was better to die. And so Verres found this
town almost the only one in the whole world from which he
could not carry off anything of that sort belonging to the
community, either by violence, or by stealth, or by his own
absolute power, or by his interest, or by bribery. But, how
ever, all this covetousness of his I will expose another time ;
at present I must return to Sthenius. Verres being furiously
enraged against Sthenius, renounces the connexion of hos
pitality with him, leaves his house, and departs;1 for, indeed,
he had moved his quarters before. The greatest enemies
of Sthenius immediately invite him to their houses, in order
to inflame his mind against Sthenius by inventing lies and
accusing him. And these enemies were, Agathinus, a man of
noble birth, and Dorotheus, who had married Callidama, the
daughter of that same Agathinus, of whom Verres had heard.
1 The Latin is, "domo ejus emigrat, atque adeo exit, nam jam ante
migrarat." Emigrat lias only a simple meaning ; exit is said of him
who "goes forth without any baggage ; he then appeared migrasse when
he plundered Sthenius of all his furniture and plate, and removed it to
his own house." — Garaton.
III. AGAINST VEREE8. 253
So he preferred migrating to the son-in-law of Agathinus.
Only one night elapsed before he became so intimate with
Dorotheus, that, as one might say, they had everything in
common. He paid as great attention to Agathinus as if he
had been some connexion or relation of his own. He ap
peared even to despise that statue of Himera, because the
figure and features of his hostess delighted him much more.
XXXVII. Therefore he began to instigate the men to
create some danger for Sthenius, and to invent some accu
sation against him. They said they had nothing to allege
against him. On this he openly declared to them, and pro
mised to them that they might prove whatever they pleased
against Sthenius if they only laid the information before
him. So they do not delay. They immediately bring Sthenius
before him ; they say that the public documents have been
tampered with by him. Sthenius demands, that as his own
fellow-citizens are prosecuting him on a charge of tampering
with the public documents, and as there is a right of action
on such a charge according to the laws of the Thermitani ;
since the senate and people of Rome had restored to the
Thermitani their city, and their territory and their laws,
because they had always remained faithful and friendly ; and
since Publius llupilius had afterwards, in obedience to a decree
of the senate, given laws to the Sicilians, acting with the
advice of ten commissioners, according to which the citizens
were to use their own laws in their actions with one another ;
and since Verres himself had the same regulation contained
in his edict ; — on all these accounts, I say, he claims of Verres
to refer the matter to their own laws. That man, the justest
of all men, and the most remote from covetousness, declares
that he will investigate the affair himself, and bids him come
prepared to plead his cause at the eighth hour. It was not
difficult to see what that dishonest and wicked man was de
signing. And, indeed, he did not himself very much disguise
it, and the woman could not hold her tongue. It was under
stood that his intention was, that, after he, without any
pleading taking place, and without any witnesses being called,
had condemned Sthenius, then, infamous that he was, he
should cause the man, a man of noble birth, of mature age,
and his own host, to be cruelly punished by scourging.
And as this was notorious, by the advice of his friends
254 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
and connexions, Sthenius fled from Therrnee to Rome. He
preferred trusting himself to the winter and to the waves,
rather than not escape that common tempest and calamity oi
all the Sicilians.
XXXVIII. That punctual and diligent man is ready at the
eighth hour. He orders Sthenius to be summoned ; and, when
he sees that he does not appear, he begins to burn with indig
nation, and to go mad with rage ; to despatch l officers to his
house ; to send horsemen in every direction about his farms
and country houses ; — and as he kept waiting there till some
certain news could be brought to him, he did not leave the
court till the third hour of the night. The next day he came
down again the first thing in the morning ; he calls Agathinus,
he bids him make his statement about the public documents
against Sthenius in his absence. It was a cause of such a
character, that, even though he had no adversary in court,
and a judge unfriendly to the defendant, still he could not
find anything to say. So that he confined himself to the
mere statement that, when Sacerdos was pnetor, Sthenius had
tampered with the public documents. He had scarcely said
this when Verres gives sentence " that Sthenius seems to have
tampered with the public documents," and, moreover, this
man so devoted to Venus, added this besides, with no prece
dent for, no example of, such an addition, " For that action
he should adjudge five hundred thousand sesterces to Venus
Erycina out of the property of Sthenius." And immediately
he began to sell his property ; and he would have sold it, if
there had been ever so little delay in paying him the money.
After it was paid, he was not content with this iniquity ; he
gave notice openly from the seat of justice, and from the tri
bunal, " That if any one wished to accuse Sthenius in his
absence of a capital charge, he was ready to take the charge."
And immediately he began to instigate Agathinus, his new
relation and host, to apply himself to such a cause, and to
accuse him. But he said loudly, in the hearing of every one,
that he would not do so, and that he was not so far an enemy
to Sthenius as to say that he was implicated in any capital
crime. Just at this moment a man of the name of Pacilius,
1 The Latin word is Venereus : the officers who attended on the
Boman magistrate in Sicily were so called from Venus Erycina, who was
the patron g-oddess of all the west of Sicily.
III. AGAINST VERRES. 255
a needy and worthless man, arrives on a sudden. He says,
that he is willing to accuse the man in his absence if he may.
And Verres tells him that he may, that it is a thing often
done, and that he will receive the accusation. So the charge
is made. Verres immediately issues an edict that Sthenius is
to appear at Syracuse on the first of December. He, when
he had reached Rome, and had a sufficiently prosperous
voyage for so unfavourable a time of year, and had found
everything more just and gentle than the disposition of the
prsetor, his own guest, related the whole matter to his
friends, and it appeared to them all cruel and scandalous, as
indeed it was.
XXXIX. Therefore Cna3us Lentulus and Lucius Gellius the
consuls immediately propose in the senate that it be estab
lished as a law, if it so seem good to the conscript fathers,
" That men be not proceeded against on capital charges in the
provinces while they are absent." They relate to the senate
the whole case of Sthenius, aiid the cruelty and injustice of
Verres. Verres, the father of the praitor, was present in the
senate, and with tears begged all the senators to spare his son,
but he had not much success. For the inclination of the
senate for the proposal of the consuls was extreme. There
fore opinions were delivered to this effect ; " that as Sthenius
had been proceeded against in his absence, it seemed good to
the senate that no trial should take place in the case of an
absent man ; and if anything had been done, it seemed good
that it should not be ratified." On that day nothing could
be done, because it was so late, and because his father had
found men to waste the time in speaking. Afterwards the
elder Verres goes to all the defenders and connexions of Sthe
nius ; he begs and entreats them not to attack his son, not to
be anxious about Sthenius ; he assures them that he will take
care that he suffers no injury by means of his son ; that with
that object he will send trustworthy men into Sicily both by
sea and land. And it wanted now about thirty days of the
first of December, on which day he had ordered Sthenius to
appear at Syracuse. The friends of Stheneus are moved ;
they hope that by the letters and messengers of the father the
son may be called off from his insane attempt. The cause is
not agitated any more in the senate. Family messengers come
to Verres, and bring him letters from his father before the
256 CICERO S ORATIONS.
first of December, before any steps whatever had been taken
by him in Sthenius's affair ; and at the same time many
letters about the same business are brought to him from
many of his friends and intimates.
XL. On this he, who had never any regard either for his
duty or his danger, or for affection, or for humanity, when
put in competition with his covetousuess, did not think, as far
as he was advised, that the authority of his father, nor, as far
as he was entreated, that his inclination was to be preferred to
the gratification of his own evil passions. On the morning of
the first of December, according to his edict, he orders Sthe-
nius to be summoned. If your father, at the request of any
friend, whether influenced by kindness or wishing to curry
favour with him, had made that petition to you, still the
inclination of your father ought to have had the greatest
weight with you ; but when he begged it of you for the sake
of your own safety from a capital charge, and when he had
sent trustworthy men from home, and when they had come to
you at a time when the whole affair was still intact, could not
even then a regard, if not for affection, at least for your own.
safety, bring you back to duty and to common sense 1 He
summons the defendant. He does not answer. He summons
the accuser. (Mark, I pray you, 0 judges ; see how greatly
fortune herself opposed that man's insanity, and see at the
same time what chance aided the cause of Sthenius ;) the
accuser, Marcus Pacilius, being summoned, (I know not how
it came about,) did not answer, did not appear. If Sthenius
had been accused while present, if he had been detected in a
manifest crime, still, as his accuser did not appear, Sthenius
ought not to have been condemned. In truth, if a defendant
could be condemned though his accuser did not appear, I
should not have come from Vibo to Velia in a little boat
through the weapons of fugitive slaves, and pirates, and
through yours, at a time when all that haste of mine at the
peril of my life was to prevent your being taken out of the list
of defendants if I did not appear on the appointed day. If
then in this trial of yours that was the most desirable thing
for you, — namely, for me not to appear when I was summoned,
why did you not think that it ought also to serve Sthenius
that his accuser had not appeared ? He so managed the
matter that the end entirely corresponded to the beginning ;
III. AGAINST VERRES. 257
the same man against whom he had received an accusation
while he was absent, he condemns now when the accuser is
absent.
XLI. At the very outset news was brought to him that the
matter had been agitated in the senate, (which his father also
had written him word of at great length ;) that also in the
public assembly Marcus Palicanus, a tribune of the people,
had made a complaint to them of the treatment of Sthenius ;
lastly, that I myself had pleaded the cause of Sthenius be
fore this college of the tribunes of the people, as by their
edict -110 one was allowed to remain in Rome who had been
condemned on a capital ' charge ; and that when I had ex
plained the business as I have now done to you, and had
proved that this had no right to be considered a condemna
tion, the tribunes of the people passed this resolution, and
that it was unanimously decreed by them, "That Sthenius
did not appear to be prohibited by their edict from remaining
in Rome." When this news was brought to him, he for a
while was alarmed and agitated ; he turned the blunt end of
his pen2 on to his tablets, and by so doing he overturned the
whole of his cause. For he left himself nothing which could
be defended by any means whatever. For if he were to urge,
in his defence, " It is lawful to take a charge against an absent
man, — no law forbids this being done in a province," he would
seem to be putting forth a faulty and worthless defence, but
still it would be some sort of a defence. Lastly, he might
employ that most desperate refuge, of saying, that he had
acted ignorantly; that he had thought that it was lawful.
And although this is the worst defence of all, still he would
seem to have said something. He erases that from his tablets
1 It has been explained in note 2, p. 3, on the Oration for Quintius,
that a " capital charge " at Rome does not necessarily mean one
affecting the life of the prisoner, but his status as a free citizen. A
charge which involved infamia, disfranchisement, was res capitalis ;
though as it is impossible to render caput when used in this sense so as
to give its accurate meaning, I have been forced occasionally to rendei
it " life."
2 To turn the pen was to erase what had been written. " At one end
the stilus was sharpened to a point for scratching the characters on the
wax, while the other end, being flat and circular, served to render the
surface of the tablets smooth again, and so to obliterate what had been
written. Thus -vertere stilum means to erase, and hence to correct." —
Smith, Diet. Ant. in -
8
258 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
which he had put down, and enters " that the charge was
brought against Sthenius while he was present."
XLII. Here consider in how many toils he involved him
self, from which he could never disentangle himself. In the
first place, he had often and openly declared himself in Sicily
from his tribunal, and had asserted to many people in private
conversation, that it was lawful to take a charge against an
absent man ; that he, for example, had done so himself — which
he had. That he was in the habit of constantly saying this,
was stated at the former pleading by Sextus Pompeius Chlo-
rus, a man of whose virtue I have before spoken highly ; and
by Cnseus Pompeius Theodorus, a man approved of by the
judgment of that most illustrious man Cnseus Pompeius in
many most important affairs, and, by universal consent, a
most accomplished person; and by Posides Matro of Solentum,
a man of the highest rank, of the greatest reputation and
virtue. And as many as you please will tell you the same
thing at this present trial, both men who have heard it
from his own mouth, — some of the leading men of our order,
— and others too who were present when the accusation was
taken against Sthenius in his absence. Moreover at Rome,
when the matter was discussed in the senate, all his friends,
and among them his own father, defended him on the ground
of its being lawful so to act ; — of its having been done con
stantly ; — of his having done what he had done according to
the example and established precedent of others. Besides, all
Sicily gives evidence of the fact, which in the common peti
tions of all the states, has prescribed this request to the con
suls, "to beg and entreat of the conscript fathers, not to
allow charges to be received against the absent." Concerning
which matter you heard Cnseus Lentulus, the advocate of
Sicily, and a most admirable young man, say, that the
Sicilians, when they were instructing him. in their case, and
pointing out to him what matters were to be urged in their
behalf before the senate, complained much of this misfortune
of Sthenius, and on account of this injustice which had been
done to Sthenius, resolved to make this demand which I have
mentioned. And as this is the case, were you endued with
such insanity and audacity, as, in a matter so clear, so
thoroughly proved, — made so notorious even by you yourself,
to dare to corrupt the public records 1 But how did you
III. AGAINST VERRES. 259
corrupt them ? Did you not do it in such a way that, even
if we all kept silence, still your own handwriting would be
sufficient to condemn you 1 Give me, if you please, the docu
ment. Take it round to the judges ; show it to them. Do
you not see that the whole of this entry, where he states that
the charge was made against Sthenius in his presence, is a
correction ? What was written there before ? What blunder
did he correct when he made that erasure ? Why, 0 judges,
do you wait for proofs of this charge from us 1 We say
nothing ; the books are before you, which cry out themselves
that they have been tampered with and amended. Do you
think you can possibly escape out of this business, when we
are following you up, not by any uncertain opinion, but by
your own traces, which you have left deeply printed and fresh
in the public documents ? Has he decided, (I should like to
know,) without hearing the cause, that Sthenius has tampered
with the public documents, who cannot possibly defend him
self from the charge of having tampered with the public
documents in the case of that very Sthenius ?
XLIII. See now another instance of madness ; see how, in
trying to acquit himself, he entangles himself still more. He
assigns an advocate to Sthenius. — Whom 1 Any relation or
intimate friend?- No. — Any citizen, any honourable and
noble man of Florence 1 Not even that. — At least it was
some Sicilian, in whom there was some credit and dignity ?
Far from it. — Whom then did he assign to him ] A Roman
citizen. Who can approve of this ? When Sthenius was the
man of the highest rank in his city, a man of most extensive
connexions, with numberless friends ; when, besides, he was
of the greatest influence all over Sicily, by his own personal
character and popiilarity ; could he find no Sicilian who was
willing to be appointed his advocate 1 Will you approve of
this ? Did he himself prefer a Roman citizen 1 Tell me what
Sicilian, when he was defendant in any action, ever had a
Roman citizen assigned to him as his advocate ? Produce
the records of all the praetors who preceded Verres; open
them. If you find one such instance, I will then admit to
you that this was done as you have entered it in your public
documents. Oh but, I suppose, Sthenius thought it honour
able to himself for Verres to choose a man for his advocate
out of the number of Roman citizens who were his own friends
260 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
and connexions ! Whom did he choose ? Whose name is
•written in the records 1 Cains Claudius, the son of Caius, of
the Palatine tribe. I do not ask who this Claudius is ; how
illustrious, how honourable, how well suited to the business,
and deserving that, because of his influence and dignity,
Sthenius should abandon the custom of all the Sicilians, and
have a Roman citizen for his advocate. I do not ask any of
these questions; — for perhaps Sthenius was influenced not by
the high position of the man, but by his intimacy with him. —
WThat 1 What shall we say if there was in the whole world
no greater enemy to Sthenius than this very Caius Claudius,
both constantly in old times, and especially at this time and
in this affair 1 — if he appeared against him on the charge of
tampering with the public documents 1 — if he opposed him by
every means in his power 1 Which shall we believe, — that an
enemy of Sthenius was actually appointed his advocate, or
that you, at a time of the greatest danger to Sthenius, made
free with the name of his enemy, to ensure his ruin 1
XLIV. And that no one may have any doubt as to the real
nature of the whole transaction, although I feel sure that by
this time that man's rascality is pretty evident to you all,
still listen yet a little longer. Do you see that man with
curly hair, of a dark complexion, who is looking at us with
such a countenance as shows that he seems to himself a very
clever fellow 1 him, I mean, who has the papers in his hand —
who is writing — who is prompting him — who is next to him.
That is Caius Claudius, who in Sicily was considered Verres-!s
agent and interpreter, the manager of all his dirty work, a sort
of colleague to Timarchides. Now he is promoted so high that he
scarcely seems to yield to Apronius in intimacy with him ; indeed
he called himself the colleague and ally not of Timarchides, but
of Verres himself. Now doubt, if you can, that he chose that
man of all the world to impose the worthless character of a
false advocate on, whom he knew to be most hostile to Sthe
nius, and most friendly to himself. And will you hesitate in
this case, 0 judges, to punish such enormous audacity and
cruelty and injustice as that of this man 1 Will you hesitate
to follow the example of those judges, who, when they had
condemned Cnseus Dolabella, rescinded the condemnation of
Philodamus of Opus, because a charge had been received
against him, no+- in his absence, which is of all things the
III. AGAINST VERHES. 261
most unjust and the most intolerable, but after a commission
had been given him by his fellow-citizens to proceed to Rome
as their ambassador ? That precedent which the judges, in
obedience to the principles of equity, established in a less
important cause, will you hesitate to adopt in a cause of the
greatest, consequence, especially now that it has been esta
blished by the authority of others ?
XLV. But who was it, 0 Verres, whom you treated with such
great, with such unexampled injustice? Against whom did you
receive a charge in his absence 1 Whom did you condemn in
his absence ; not only without any crime, and without any
witness, but even without any accuser? Who was it 1 0 ye
immortal gods ! I will not say your own friend, — that which
is the dearest title among men. I will not say your host, —
which is the most holy name. There is nothing in Sthenius's
case which I speak of less willingly. The only thing which
I find it possible to blame him in is, — that he, a most mode
rate and upright man, invited you, a man full of adultery, and
crime, and wickedness, to his house; that he, who had been
and was connected by ties of hospitality with Caius Marius,
with Cnteus Pornpeius, with Caius Marcellus, with Lucius
Sisenna, your defender, and with other excellent citizens, added
your name also to that of those unimpeachable men. On
which account I make no complaint of violated hospitality,
and of your abominable wickedness in violating it; I say this
not to those who know Sthenius, — that is to say, not to any
one of those who have been in Sicily ; (for no one who has is
ignorant in how great authority he lived in his own city, in
what great honour and consideration among all the Sicilians ;)
but I say it that those, too, who have not been in the pro
vince, may be able to understand who he was in whose case
you established such a precedent, that both on account of the
iniquity of the deed, as well as on account of the rank of the
man, it appeared scandalous and intolerable to every one.
XLVI. Is not Sthenius the man, he who when he had very
easily obtained all the honourable offices in his city, executed
them with the greatest splendour and magnificence? — who
decorated a town, not itself of the first rank, with most
spacious places of public resort, and most splendid monu
ments, at his own expense ? — on account of whose good services
towards the state of Thermae, and towards all the Sicilians, a
brazen tablet was set up in the senate-house at Thermae; in
262 CICEEO'S ORATIONS.
which mention was made of his services, and. engraved at the
public expense 1 — which tablet was torn down under your
government, and is now brought hither by me, that all may
know the honour in which he was held among his country
men, and his preeminent dignity. Is this the man, who when
he was accused before that most illustrious man, Cnaeus
Pompeius, and when his enemies and accusers charged him,
in terms calculated to excite odium against him, rather than
true, of having been ill affected to the republic on account of
his intimacy and his connexions of hospitality with Caius
Marius, was acquitted by Cnseus Pompey with such language
as showed that, from what had come out at that very trial,
Cnseus Pompeius judged him most worthy of his own inti
macy? and moreover was defended and extolled by all the
Sicilians in such a manner, that Pompey thought that by his
acquittal he had earned, not only the gratitude of the man
himself, but that of the whole province1? Lastly, is not he
the man who had such affection towards the republic, and also
such great authority among his fellow-citizens, that he alone
in all Sicily, while you were praetor, did what not only no
other Sicilian, but what all Sicily even could not do, — namely,
prevented you from taking away any statue, any ornament,
any sacred vessel, or any public property from Thermae ; and
that too when there were many remarkable beautiful things
there, and though you coveted everything? See now, what a
difference there is between you, in whose name days of fes
tival are kept among the Sicilians, and those splendid Verrean
games are celebrated; to whom gilt statues are erected at
Home, presented by the commonwealth of Sicily, as we see
inscribed upon them; — see, I say, what a difference there is
between you and this Sicilian, who was condemned by you,
the patron of Sicily. Him very many cities of Sicily praise
by public resolutions in his favour, by their own evidence, by
deputations sent hither with that object. You, the patron of
all the Sicilians, the solitary state of the Mamertini, the part
ner of your thefts and crimes, praises publicly; and yet in
such a way that, by a new process, the deputies themselves
injure your cause, though the deputation praises you. The
other states all publicly accuse you, complain of you, impeach
you by letters, by deputations, by evidence ; and, if you are
acquitted, think themselves utterly ruined.
XL VI I. It is in the case of this man and of his property
III. AGAINST VERRES. 263
that you have erected a monument of your crimes and cruelty
even on Mount Eryx itself; on which is inscribed the name
Sthenius of Thermse. I saw a Cupid made of silver, with a
torch. What object had you, — what reason was there for em
ploying the plunder of Sthenius on that subject rather than
on any other 1 Did you wish it to be a token of your own
cupidity, or a trophy of your friendship and connexion of
hospitality with him, or a proof of your love towards him ]
Men, who in their exceeding wickedness are pleased not only
with their lust and pleasure itself, but also with the fame of
their wickedness, do wish to leave in many places the marks
and traces*of their crimes. He was burning with love of that
hostess for whose sake he had violated the laws of hospitality.
He wished that not only to be known, but also to be recorded
for ever. And therefore, out of the proceeds of that very
action which he had performed, Agathinus being the accuser,
he thought that a reward was especially due to Venus, who
had caused the prosecution and the whole proceeding. I
should think you grateful to the Gods if you had given this
gift to Venus, not out of the property of Stheuius, but out of
your own, as you ought to have done, especially as an inhe
ritance had come to you from Chelidon that very same year.
On these grounds now, even if I had not undertaken this
cause at the request of all the Sicilians ; if the whole pro
vince had not requested this favour of me ; if my affection
and love for the republic, and the injury done to the credit of
our order and of the courts of justice, had not compelled me
to do so ; and if this had been my only reason, that you had
so cruelly, and wickedly, and abominably treated my friend
and connexion1 Sthenius, to whom I had formed an extraor
dinary attachment in my qusestorship, of whom I had the
highest possible opinion, whom while I was in the province
I knew to be most zealous and earnest for my reputation, — I
should still think I had plenty of reason to incur the enmity
of a most worthless man, in order to defend the safety and
fortunes of my friend. Many men have done the same in the
times of our ancestors. Lately, too, that most eminent man.
1 I have in some instances translated hospes " friend," and oftener still
*' connexion," though either word is far from representing adequately
the idea of the Latin fwspes; because, as modern manners are unac
quainted with ths usage, modern languages have no word to express it.
264 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
Cnseus Domitius did so, who accused Marcus Silanus, a man
of consular rank, on account of the injuries done by him tc>
Egritomarus of the Transalpine country, his friend. I should
think it became me to follow the example of their good feeling
and regard for their duty ; and I should hold out hope to my
friends and connexions to think that they would live a safer
life owing to my protection. But when the cause of Sthenius
draws along with it the common calamity of the whole pro
vince, and when many of my friends and connexions are being
defended by me at the same time, both in their public and
private interests, I ought not in truth to fear that any one
can suppose that I have done what I have in undertaking this
cause under the pressure and compulsion of any motive except
that of the strictest duty.
XLVIII. And that we may at last give up speaking of the
investigations made, and the judicial proceedings conducted,
and of the decisions given by that man ; and as his exploits
of that class are countless, let us put some bounds ar>.d limits
to our speech and accusation. We will take a few cases of
another sort.
You have heard Quintus Varius say, that his agents paid
that man a hundred and thirty thousand sesterces for a deci
sion in his cause. You recollect that the evidence of Quintus
Varius was corroborated, and that this whole affair was proved
by the testimony of Caius Sacerdos, a most excellent man.
You know that Cnseus Sertius and Marcus Modius, Roman
knights, and that six hundred Roman citizens besides, and
many Sicilians, said that they had given that money for deci
sions in their causes. And why need I dilate upon this accu
sation when the whole matter is set plainly forth in the
evidence 1 Why should I argue about what no one can
doubt 1 Or will any man in the world doubt that he set up
his judicial decisions for sale in Sicily, when at Rome he sold
his very edict and all his decrees? and that he received
money from the Sicilians for issuing extraordinary decrees,
when he actually made a demand on Marcus Octavius Ligur
for giving a decision on his cause 1 For what method of ex
torting money did he ever omit 1 What method did he fail
to devise, even if it had escaped the notice of every one else ?
Was anything in the Sicilian states ever sought to be obtained
in which there is any honour^ any power, or any authority,
III. AGAINST VERRES. 2G5
that you did not make it a source of your own gain, and sell
it to the best bidder ?
XLIX. At the former pleading evidence was given of both a
public and a private natxire ; deputies from Centuripa, from
Halesa, from Catina, and from Panormus, and from many other
cities gave evidence ; but now, also, a great many private in
dividuals have been examined, by whose testimony you have
ascertained that no one in all Sicily for the space of three years
was ever made senator in any city for nothing, — no one by
vote, as their laws prescribe, — no one except by his command,
or by his letters ; and that in the appointment of all these
senators, not only were no votes given, but there was not
even any consideration of those families from which it was
lawful to select men for that body, nor of their income, nor
of their age ; nor were any other of the Sicilian laws of the
slightest influence. Whoever wished to be made a senator,
though he was a boy, though he was unworthy, though he
was of a class from which it was not lawful to take senators ;
still, if he paid money enough to appear in his eyes a fit man
to gain his objeet, so it always was. Not only the laws
of the Sicilians had no influence in this matter, but even
those which had been given to them by the senate and
people of Rome had none either. For the laws which he
makes who has the supreme command given to him by the
Roman people, and authority to make laws conferred on him
by the senate, ought to be considered the laws of the senate
and people of Rome. The citizens of Halesa, who were till
lately in the enjoyment of their own laws, in return for the
numerous and great services and good deeds done both by
themselves and by their ancestors to our reptiblic, lately
in the consulship of Lucius Licinius and Quintus Mucius,
requested laws from our senate, as they had disputes among
themselves about the elections into their senate. The senate,
by a very honourable decree, voted that Caius Claudius
Pulcher, the son of Appius the prsetor, should give them laws
to regulate their elections into their senate. Caius Claudius,
taking as his counsellors all the Marcelli who were then alive,
with their advice gave laws to the men of Halesa, in wThich he
laid down many rules about the age of the men who might
be elected ; that no one might be under thirty years of
age ; about trade, — that no one engaged in it might be
266 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
elected ; about their income, and about all other matters ;
all which regulations prevailed till that man became preetor,
by the authority of our magistrates, and with the cordial
good-will of the men of Halesa. But from him even a crier
who was desirous of it, bought that rank for a sum of money,
and boys sixteen and seventeen years old purchased the title
of senator ; and that which the men of Halesa, our most
ancient and faithful allies and friends, had petitioned, and
that successfully, at Rome, to have put on such a footing
that it might not be lawful for men to be elected even
by vote, he now made easy to be obtained by bribery.
L. The people of Agrigentum have old laws about ap
pointing their senate, given them by Scipio, in which the
same principles are laid down, and this one besides, — as there
are two classes of Agrigentines, one of the old inhabitants, and
the other of the new, — settlers whom Titus Manlius, when
prsetor, had led from other towns of the Sicilians to Agri
gentum, in obedience to a resolution of the senate ; — it was
provided in the laws of Scipio, that there should not be
a greater number of members of the senate taken from the
class of settlers than from the old inhabitants of Agrigentum.
That man, who had levelled all laws by bribery, and who had
taken away all distinction between things for money, not
only disturbed all those regulations which related to age,
rank, and traffic, but even with respect to these two classes of
old and new inhabitants, he disturbed the proportion of
their selection. For when a senator died of the old inhabi
tants, and when the remaining number of each class was
equal, it was necessary, according to the laws, that one of the
original inhabitants should be elected in order that theirs
might be the larger number. And though this was the case,
still, not only some of the original inhabitants, but also some
of the new settlers, came to him to purchase the rank of
senator. The result is, that through bribery, one of the new-
men carries the day, and gets letters of appointment from
the prsetor. The Agrigentines send deputies to him to inform
him of their laws, and to explain to him the invariable usage
of past years, in order that he might be aware that he had
sold that rank to one with whom he had no right even to treat
on the subject. By whose speech, as he had already received
the money, he was not in the least influenced. He did the
III. AGAINST VERRES. 267
same tiling at Heraclea. For thither also Publius Rupi-
lius led settlers, and gave them similar laws about the
appointment of the senate, and about the number of the old
and new senators. There he did not only receive money,
as he did in the other cities, but he even confused the classes
of the original inhabitants and of the new settlers.
LI. Do not wait for me to go through all the cities of
Sicily in my speech. In this one statement I comprehend
everything, — that no one could be made a senator while he
was praetor except those who had given him money. And I
carry on the same charge to all magistracies, agencies, and
priesthoods ; by which acts he has not only trampled on the
laws of men, but on all the religious reverence due to the
immortal gods. There is at Syracuse a law respecting their
religion, which enjoins a priest of Jupiter to be taken by lot
every year, and that priesthood is considered among the
Syracusans as the most honourable. When three men have
been selected by vote out of the three classes of citizens, the
matter is decided by lot. He by his absolute command had
contrived to have his intimate friend Theomnastus returned
among the three by vote. When it came to the decision by
lot, which he could not command, men were waiting to see
what he would do. The fellow at first forbade them to elect
by lot, as that seemed the easiest way, and ordered Theom
nastus to be appointed without casting lots. The Syracusans
say that cannot possibly be done, according to the reverence
due to their sacred laws; they say it would be impious. He
orders the law to be read to him. It is read. In it was
written, " that as many lots were to be thrown into the urn,
as there were names returned ; that he whose name was
drawn was to have the priesthood." He then, ingenious and
clever man! said, "Capital! it is written, 'As many lots as
there are names returned ;' how many names then were
returned1?" It is answered, "Three." "Is there then any
thing necessary except that three lots should be put in, and
one drawn out?" "Nothing." He orders three lots to be
put in, on all of which was written the name of Theomnastus.
A great outcry arises, as it seemed to every one a scandalous
and infamous proceeding. And so by these means that most
honourable priesthood is given to Theomnastus.
LIT. At Cephaleedium there is a regular month, in which
2 08 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
the pontifex is bound to be appointed. A man of the name
of Artemo, surnamed Climachias, was desirous of that honour,
a man of sufficient riches to be sure, and of noble family ; but
he could not possibly have been appointed if a man of the
name of Herodotus had been present. For that place and
rank was thought to be so decidedly due to him for that year,
that even Climachias could say nothing against him. The
matter is referred to Verres, and is decided according to his
usual fashion. Some beautiful and valuable specimens of
carving are removed from Artemo's. Herodotus was at Rome ;
he thought that he should arrive in time enoxigh for the
comitia if he came the day before. Verres, in order that the
comitia might not be held in any other month than the
regular one, and that the honour might not be refused to
Herodotus when he was present, (a thing which he was not
anxious for. and which Climachias was very eager to avoid,)
contrives, (I have said before, there is no one cleverer, and
never was, in his way,) — he contrives, I say, how the comitia
may be held in the regular month for them, and yet Hero
dotus may not be able to be present. It is a custom of the
Sicilians, and of the rest of the Greeks, because they wish
their days and months to agree with the calculations as to the
sun and moon, if there be any difference sometimes to take
out a day, or, at most, two days from a month, which they
call iZatplffipoi. And so also they sometimes make a month
longer by a day or by two days. And when he heard of that,
he, this new astronomer, who was thinking not so much of the
heavens as of the heavy plate,1 he orders (not a day to be
taken out of the month, but) a month and a half to be taken
out of the year ; so that the day which, as one may say,
ought to have been the thirteenth of January, became the
first of March. And that is done in spite of the remonstrances
and indignation of every one. That was the legitimate day
for holding the comitia. On that day Climachias is declared
to have been elected priest. When Herodotus returns from
Rome, fifteen days, as he supposed, before the comitia, he
comes on the month of the comitia, when the comitia have
been held thirty days before. Then the people of Cepha-
Itedium voted an intercalary month of forty-five days, in order
1 The original pans on the resemblance between ccelum, "heaven," and
ccelatum, " carved " or " chased."
III. AGAINST VERRES. 269
that the rest of the mouths might fall again into their proper
season. If these things could be done at Rome, no doubt he
would somehow or other have contrived to have the forty-five
days between the two sets of games taken away, during which
days alone this trial could take place.
LI II. But now it is worth while to see how the censors
were appointed in Sicily while that man was prsetor. For
that is the magistracy among the Sicilians, the appointments
to which are made by the people with the greatest care,
because all the Sicilians pay a yearly tax in proportion to
their incomes ; and, in making the census, the power is
entrusted to the censor of making every sort of valuation, and
of determining the total amount of every man's contribution.
Therefore the people choose with the greatest care the man in
whom they can place the greatest confidence in a matter
affecting their own property ; and on account of the greatness
of the power, this magistracy is an object of the greatest am
bition. In such a matter, Verres did not choose to do any
thing obscurely, nor to play tricks in the drawing of lots,
; nor to take days out of the calendar. He did not choose to
do anything in an underhand manner, or by means of artifice ;
but in order to take away the fondness and desire for honours
and ambition out of every city, feelings which usually tend to
the ruin of a state, he declared that he should appoint the
censors in every city. When the prsetor announced so vast a
scene of bargaining and trafficking as that, people came to
Syracuse to see him, from all quarters. The whole of the
praetor's house was on fire with the eagerness and cupidity of
men ; and no wonder, when all the comitia of so many cities
were packed together into one house, and when all the ambi
tion of an entire province was confined in one chamber.
Bribes being openly asked for, and biddings being openly
made, Timarchides appointed two censors for every city. He,
by his own labour, and by his own visits to every one, by all
the trouble which he took in this employment, achieved this,
that all the money came to Verres without his having any
anxiety 011 his part. How much money this Timarchides
made, you cannot as yet know for a certainty ; but in what
a variety of manners, and how shamefully, he plundered
people, you heard at the former pleading, by the evidence of
many witnesses.
270 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
LIV. But that you may not wonder how that freed man
obtained so much influence with him, I will tell you briefly
what the man is ; so that you may both see the worthlessness
of the man who kept such a fellow about him, especially in
that employment and position, and that you may also see the
misery of the province. In the seduction of women, and in
all licentiousness and wickedness of that character, I found
this Timarchides wonderfully fitted by nature to be subser
vient to his infamous lusts, and unexampled profligacy. In
finding out who people were, in calling on them, in addressing
them, in bribing them, in doing anything in matters of that
sort, however cunningly, however audaciously, however shame
lessly it might be necessary to go to work, I heard that this
man could contrive admirable schemes for ensuring success.
For, as for Verres himself, he was only a man of a covetous-
ness ever open-mouthed, and ever threatening, but he had no
ingenuity, no resources ; so that, in whatever he did of his
own accord, (just as you know was the case with him at
Rome,) he seemed to rob openly rather than to cheat. But
the other fellow's skill and artifice were marvellous, so that
he could hunt out and scent out with the greatest acuteness,
all over the province, whatever had happened to any one,
whatever any one stood in need of. He was able to find out,
to converse with, to tamper with every one's foes, and every
one's enemies ; to know the circumstances of every trial on
both sides ; to ascertain men's inclinations, and power, and
resources; where it was necessary to strike terror; where it
was desirable to hold out hope. Every accuser, every informer,
he had in his power ; if he wished to cause trouble to any
one, he did it without any difficulty. All Verres's decrees, and
commands, and letters, he sold in the most skilful and cun
ning manner. And he was not only the minister of Verres's
pleasures, he also took equally good care of himself. He not
only picked up whatever money had slipped through his prin
cipal's fingers, by which he amassed great riches, but he also
picked up the relics of his pleasures and of his profligacy.
Therefore do not fancy that Athenio : reigned in Sicily, for
he took no city ; but know ye that the runaway slave Timar-
1 Athenio was a Cilician slave who had headed a revolt of slaves in
Sicily, A.U.C. 650. He was at last defeated and slain by the consul
Aquilius, A.U.O. 651.
III. AGAINST VERRES. 271
chides reigned in every city of Sicily for three yeai'S ; that the
children, the matrons, the property, and all the fortunes of
the most ancient and most devoted allies of the Roman
people were all that time in the power of Timarchides. He
therefore, as I say, he, Timarchides, sent censors into every
city, having taken bribes for their appointment. Comitia for
the election of censors, while Verres was praetor, were never held,
not even for the purpose of making a pretence of legality.
LV. This was the most shameless business of all. Three
hundred denaiii were openly exacted (for this, forsooth, was
permitted by the laws) from each censor, to be paid down for
the praetor's statue. There were appointed a hundred and
thirty censors. They gave one sum of money for the censor
ship contrary to the law ; these thirty-nine thousand denarii
they openly paid down for the statue, in compliance with the
laws. First of all, what was all that money for 1 Secondly,
why did the censors pay it to you for your statue 1 I sup
pose there is a regular order of censoi'S, a college of them.
They are a distinct class of men ! Why, it is either cities in
their capacity of communities, that confer these honours, or
men according to their classes, as cultivators, as merchants,
as shipowners. But why to censors rather than to aediles ? Is
it for any service that they have done ? Therefore, will you
confess that these things were begged of you, — for you will
not dare to say they were purchased of you ; — that you
granted those magistracies to men out of favour, and not with
a view to the interests of the republic ? And when you
confess this, will any one doubt that you incurred that un
popularity and hatred among the different tribes of that pro
vince, not out of ambition, nor for the sake of doing a kind-
uess to any one, but with the object of procuring money ?
Therefore those censors did the same thing that those do in
our republic, who have got offices by bribery; they took care
to use their power so as to fill up again that gap in their pro
perty. The census was so taken, when you were praetor, that
the affairs of no state whatever could be administered accord
ing to such a census. For they made a low return of the
incomes of all the richest men, and exaggerated that of each
poor man. And so in levying the taxes so heavy a burden,
was laid upon the common people, that even if the men
themselves said nothing, the facts alone would discredit that
272 CICERO S ORATIONS.
census ; as may easily be understood, from the circumstances
themselves.
LVI. For Lucius Metellus, who, after I came into Sicily
for the sake of prosecuting my inquiries, became on a sudden
after the arrival of Letilius not only the friend of Verres,
but even his relative ; because he saw that that census could
not possibly stand, ordered that former one to be attended to
which had been when that most gallant and upright man,
Sextus Peducaeus, was praetor. For at that time there were
censors made according to the laws, elected by their cities, in
whose case, if they did anything wrong, punishments were
appointed by the laws. But when you were praetor, how
could the censor either fear the law, by which he was not
bound, since he had not been created by the law ; or fear
your reproof for having sold what he had bought of you ?
Let Metellus now detain my witnesses — let him compel others
to praise him, as he has attempted in many instances ; only
let him do what he is doing. For \vhoever was treated by
any one with such insult, with so much ignominy 1 Every fifth
year a census is taken of all Sicily. A census was taken when
Peducaeus was prsetor. When the five years had elapsed in
your praetorship, a census was taken again. The next year
Lucius Metellus forbids any mention to be made of your
census ; he says that censors must be created afresh ; and in
the meantime he orders the census of Peducaeus to be attended
to. If an enemy of yours had done this to you, although
the province would have borne it with great equanimity, still
it woxild have seemed the severe decision of an enemy. A
new friend, a voluntary relation did it. For he could not do
otherwise, if he wished to retain the province in its allegi
ance, if he wished to live himself in safety in the province.
LVI I. Are you waiting to see what these men also will
decide 1 If he had deprived you of your office, he would have
treated you with less insult, than when he abrogated and an
nulled the things which you had done in your office. Nor
did he behave in this way in that matter alone, but he had
done the same in many other matters of the greatest im
portance, before I arrived in Sicily. For he ordered your
friends, the palaestra people, to restore his property to Hera-
clius the Syracusan, and the people of Bidis to restore his
property to Epicrates, and Appius Claudius his to his ward
III. AGAINST VERRES. 273
at Drepanum ; and, if Letilius had not arrived in Sicily with
letters a little too soon, in less than thirty days Metellus
would have annulled your whole three years' praetorship.
And, since I have spoken of that money which the censors
paid to you for your statue, it seems to me that I ought not
to pass over that method of raising money, which you ex
acted from the cities on pretence of erecting statues. For
I see that the sum total of that money is very large, amount
ing to a hundred and twenty thousand sesterces. This much
is proved by the evidence and letters of the cities. And lie
admits that, and indeed he cannot say otherwise. What sort
of conduct then are we to think that which he denies, when
these actions which he confesses are so infamous 1 For what
do you wish to be believed ? That all that money was spent
in statues? — Suppose it was. Still this is by no means to
be endured, that the allies should be robbed of so much
money, in order that statues of a most infamous robber may
be placed in every alley, where it appears scarcely possible
to pass in safety.
LVIII. But where in the world, or on what statues, was
that enormous sum of money spent ? It will be spent, you
will say. Let us, forsooth, wait for the recurrence of that
regular five years. If in this interval he has not spent it,
then at last we will impeach him for embezzlement in the
article of statues. He is brought before the court as a cri
minal on many most important charges. We see that a
hundred and twenty thousand sesterces have been taken on
this one account. If you are condemned, you will not, I pre
sume, trouble yourself about having that money spent on
statues within five years. If you are acquitted, who will be so
insane as to attack you in five years' time on the subject of the
statues, after you have escaped from so many and such grave
charges ? If, therefore, this money has not been spent as yet,
and if it is evident that it will not be spent, we may under
stand that a plan has been found out by which he may take
and appropriate to himself a hundred and twenty thousand
sesterces at one swoop, and by which others too, if this is
sanctioned by you, may take as large sums as ever they
please on similar grounds ; so that we shall appear not to
deter men from taking money, but, as we approve of some
methods of taking money, we shall seem rather to be giving
T
274 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
decent names to the basest actions. In truth, suppose, for
example, that Caius Verres had demanded a hundred and
twenty thousand sesterces from the people of Centuripa, and
had taken this money from them ; there would have been no
doubt, I conceive, that, if that were proved, he must have
been condemned. — What then 1 Suppose he demanded three
hundred thousand sesterces of the same people ; and com
pelled them to give them, and carried them oft'1? Shall he be
acquitted because it was entered in the accounts that that
money was given for statues ? I think not ; unless, indeed,
our object is to create, not, an unwillingness to take money on
the part of our magistrates, but a cause for giving it on the
part of our allies. But if statues are a great delight to any
one, and if any one is greatly attracted by the honour and
glory of having them raised to him, still he must lay down
these rules ; first of all, that he must not take to his own
house the money given for those purposes; secondly, that
there must be some limit to those statues ; and lastly, that
at all events they must not be exacted from unwilling people.
LIX. And concerning the embezzlement of the money, I
ask of you whether the cities themselves were accustomed
to let out contracts for erecting statues to the man who
would take the contract on the best terms, or to appoint
some surveyor to superintend the erection of the statues, or
to pay the money to you, or to any one whom you appointed ?
For the statues were erected under the superintendence of
those men by whom that honour was paid to you — I am glad
to hear it ; but, if that money was paid to Timarchidcs, cease,
I beg of you, to pretend that you were desirous of glory
and of monuments when you are detected in so evident a
robbery.
What then 1 Is there to be no limit to statues 1 But there
must be. Indeed, consider the matter in this way. The city
of Syracuse (to speak of that city in preference to others)
gave him a statue ; — it is an honour : and gave his father one ;
— a pretty and profitable picture of affection : and gave his
son one ; — this may be endured, for they did not hate the
boy : still how often, and for how many individuals will you
take statues from the Syracusans? You accepted one to be
placed in the forum. You compelled them to place one in the
senate-house. You ordered them to contribute money for
III. AGAINST VEKRES. 275
those statues which were to be erected at Rome. You ordered
that the same men should also contribute as agriculturists,
they did so. You ordered the same men also to pay their con
tribution to the common revenue of Sicily; even that they
did also. When one city contributed money on so many
different pretences, and when the other cities did the same,
does not the fact itself warn you to think that some bounds
must be put to this covetousness ? But if no city did this of
its own accord ; if all of them only paid you this money for
statues because they were induced to do so by your command,
by fear, by force, by injury; then, 0 ye immortal gods, can
it be doubtful to any one, that, even if any one were to esta
blish a law, that it was allowable to accept money for statues,
still he would also establish one, that at all events it was not
allowable to extort it ? First, therefore, I will cite the whole
of Sicily as a witness on this point; and Sicily declares to me
with one voice that an immense sum of money was extorted
from her by force under the name of providing statues. For
the deputations of all the cities, in their common petitions —
nearly all of which have arisen from your injuries, — have in
serted this demand also ; " that they might not for the future
promise statues to any one till he had left the province."-
LX. There have been many praetors in Sicily. Often, in
the times of our ancestors, the Sicilians have approached the
senate; often in the memory of the present generation; but
it is your prcetorship that has introduced and originated a
new kind of petition. For what else is so strange, not only
in the matter but in the very form of the petition? For
other points which occur in the same petitions with reference
to your injuries, are indeed novel, but still they are not urged
in a novel manner. The Sicilians beg and entreat of the con
script fathers that our magistrates may henceforth sell the
tenths according to the law of Hiero. You were the first who
had sold them in a way contrary to that law. — That they
may not put a money value on the corn which is ordered for
the public granary. This, too, is now requested for the first
time on account of your three denarii:1 but that kind of
petition is not unprecedented. — That a charge be not taken
1 See the note on the next oration. "De Re Frumentaria," for an
explanation of this; and on points connected with the topic of corn, and
the societas of the publicani, see tho Argument of the next oration.
276 CICERO S ORATIONS.
against any one in his absence. This has arisen from the
misfortune of Sthenius, and your tyranny. — I will not enu
merate the other points. All the demands of the Sicilians
are of such a nature that they look like charges collected
against you alone as a criminal. Still all these, though they
refer to new injuries, preserve the ordinary form of requests;
but this request about the statues must appear ridiculous to
the man who is not acquainted with the facts and with the
meaning of it; for they entreat that they may not be com
pelled to erect statues ; — what then? That they may not be
allowed to do so; — what does this mean? Do you request of
me not to be allowed to do what it depends on yourself to do
or not ? Ask rather that no one may compel you to promise
a statue, or to erect one against your will. I shall do no
good, says he ; for they will all deny that they compelled me
to do so : if you wish for my preservation, put this violence
on me, — that it may be utterly illegal for me to make such a
promise. It is from your prsetorship that such a request as
this has taken its rise; and those who employ it, intimate and
openly declare that they, entirely against their will, contri
buted money for your statues, being compelled by fear and
violence. Even suppose they did not say this, still, would
it not be impossible for you to avoid confessing it? See
and consider what defence you are going to adopt ; for then
you will understand that you must confess this about the
statues.
LXI. For I am informed that your cause is planned out in
this way by your advocates, men of great ingenuity,, and that
you are instructed and trained by them in this way ;. that, as
each influential and honourable man from the province of
Sicily gives an energetic testimony against you, as many of
the leading Sicilians have already done to a great extent, you
are immediately to say to your defenders, " That man is an.
enemy of mine because he is an agriculturist." And so, I
suppose, you have it in your mind to set aside the class of
agriculturists, saying that they have come with a hostile and
inimical disposition towards Verres because he was a little
strict in collecting the tenths. The agriculturists, then, are
all your enemies, all your adversaries. There is not one of
them who does not wish you dead. Altogether you are
admirably well off, when that order and class of men which is.
III. AGAINST VEHRES. 277
the most virtuous and honourable, by which both the republic
in general, and most especially that province upheld, is fixedly
hostile to you. However, be it so ; another time we will
consider of the disposition of the agriculturists and of their
injuries. For the present I assume, what you grant me, that
they are most hostile to you. You say, forsooth, on account
of the tenths. I grant that ; I do not inquire whether they
are enemies with or without reason. What then is the
meaning of those gilt equestrian statues which greatly offend
the feelings and eyes of the Roman people, near the temple of
Vulcan ? For I see an inscription on them stating that the
agriculturists had presented one of them. If they gave this
statue to do you honour, they are not your enemies. Let us
believe the witnesses ; for then they were consulting your
honour, now they are regarding their own consciences. But
if they presented the statues under the compulsion of fear, you
must confess that you exacted money in the province on
account of statues by violence and fear. Choose whichever
alternative you like.
LXII. In truth I would willingly now abandon this charge
about the statues, to have you admit to me, what would be
most honourable to you, that the agriculturists contributed
this money for a statue to do you honour, of their own free
will. Grant me this. In a moment yon cut from under youi-
feet the principal part of your defence. For then you will
not be able to say that the agriculturists were angry with and
enemies to you. O singular cause ; 0 miserable and ruinous
defence ; for the defendant, and he too a defendant who has
been pi'eetor in Sicily, to be unwilling to receive an admission
from his accuser that the agriculturists erected him a statue
of their own free will, that they have a good opinion of him,
that they are his friends, that they desire his safety ! . He is
afraid of your believing this, for he is overwhelmed with the
evidence given against him by the agriculturists. I will avail
myself of what is granted to me ; at all events you must judge
that those men, who, as he himself wishes it to be believed,
are most hostile to him, did not contribute money for his
honour and for his monuments of their own free will. And
that this may be most easily understood, ask any one you
please of the witnesses whom I shall produce, who are witnesses
from Sicily, whether a Eoman citizen or a Sicilian, and one
278 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
too who appears most hostile to you, who says that he has
been plundered by you, whether he contributed anything in
his own name to the statue 1 You will not find one man to
deny it. In truth they all contributed. Do you think then
that any one will doubt that he who ought to be most hostile
to you, who has received the severest injuries from you, paid
money on account of a statue to you because he was compelled
by violence and authoritative command, not out of kindness and
by his own free will ? And I have neither counted up, nor been
able to count, 0 judges, the amount of this money, which is
very large, and which has been most shamelessly extorted from
unwilling men, so as to estimate how much was extorted from
agriculturists, how much from traders who trade at Syracuse,
at Agrigentum, at Panormus, at Lilybaeum ; since you see by
even his own confession that it was extorted from most unwil
ling contributors.
LXIII. I come now to the cities of Sicily, in which case it
is exceedingly easy to form an opinion of their inclination.
Did the Sicilians also contribute against their will ] It is not
probable. In truth it is evident that Caius Verres so con
ducted himself during his prsetorship in Sicily, that, as he
could not satisfy both parties, both the Sicilians and the Eo-
mans, he considered rather his duty to our allies, than his
ambition, which might have prompted him to gratify the
citizens. And therefore I saw him called in an inscription at
Syracuse, not only the patron of that island, but also the
saviour of it. What a great expression is this ! so great that
it cannot be expressed by any single Latin word. He in truth
is a saviour, who has given salvation. In his name days of
festival are kept — that fine Verrean festival — not as if it was
the festival of Marcellus, but instead of the Marcellean fes
tival, which they abolished at his command. His triumphal
arch is in the forum at Syracuse, on which his son stands,
naked ; and he himself from horseback looks down on the
province which has been stripped bare by himself. His
ctatues are in every place ; which seem to show this, that he
very nearly erected as many statues at Syracuse as he had
taken away from it. And even at Koine we see an inscrip
tion in his honour carved at the foot of the statues, in letters
of the largest size, " that they were given by the community
of Sicily." Why were they given ? How can any one be in-
III. AGAINST VERRES. 279
duced to believe that such great honours were paid to him
by people against their will 1
LXIV. Here, too, you must deliberate and consider even
much more than you did in the case of the agriculturists,
what you intend. It is an important matter. Do you wish
the Sicilians, both in their public and private capacity, to be
considered friends to you, or enemies 1 If enemies, what is to
become of you ? Whither will you flee for refuge ? On what
will you depend 1 Just now you repudiated the greater part
of the agriculturists, most honourable and wealthy men, both
Sicilians and Roman citizens. Now, what will you do about
the Sicilian cities 1 Will you say that the Sicilians are friendly
to you 1 How can you say so 1 They who (though they have
never done such a thing in the instance of any one else before,
as to give public evidence against him, even though many
men who have been praetors in that province have been con
demned, and only two, who have been prosecuted, have been
acquitted;) — they, I say, who now come with letters, with com
missions, with public testimonies against you, while, if they
were to utter a panegyric on you in behalf of their state,
they would appear to do so according to their usual custom,
rather than because of your deserts. When these men make
a public complaint of your actions, do they not show this,
that your injuries have been so great that they preferred to
depart from their ancient habit, rather than not speak of your
habits? You must, therefore, inevitably confess that the
Sicilians are hostile to you ; since they have addressed to the
consuls petitions of the gravest moment directed against you,
and have entreated me to undertake this cause, and the
advocacy of their safety ; since, though they were forbidden
to come by the praetor, and hindered by four quaestors, they
still have thought every one's threats and every danger insig
nificant, in comparison with their safety; since at the former
pleading they gave their evidence so earnestly and so bitterly,
that Hortensius said that Artemo, the deputy of Ceuturipa,
and the witness authorized by the public council there, was an
accuser, not a witness. In truth he, together with Andron,
a most honourable and trustworthy man, both on account of
his virtue and integrity, and also on account of his eloquence,
was appointed by his fellow-citizens as their deputy, in order
that he might be able to explain in the most intelligible
280 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
and clear manner the numerous and various injuries which
they have sustained from Verres.
LXV. The people of Halesa, of Catana, of Tyndaris, of
Enna, of Herbita, of Agyrium, of Netum, of Segesta, gave
evidence also. It is needless to enumerate them all. You
know how many gave evidence, and how many things they
proved at the former pleading. Now both they and the rest
shall give their evidence. Eveiy one, in short, shall be made
aware of this fact in this cause, — that the feelings of the Sici
lians are such, that if that man be not punished, they think
that they must leave their habitations and their homes, and de
part from Sicily, and flee to some distant land. Will you per
suade us that these men contributed large sums of money to
confer honour and dignity on you of their own free will 1 I sup
pose, forsooth, they who did not like you to reTiiain in safety
in your own city, wished to have memorials of your person and
name in their own cities ! The facts show that they wished
it. For I have been for some time thinking that I was
handling the argument about the inclination of the Sicilians
towards you too tenderly, as to whether they were desirous
to erect statues to you, or were compelled to do so. What
man ever lived of whom such a thing fras heard as has
happened to you, that his statues in his province, erected in
the public places, and some of them even in the holy temples,
were thrown down by force by the whole population '? There
have been many guilty magistrates in Asia, many in Africa,
many in Spain, in Gaul, in Sardinia, many in Sicily itself ;
but did we ever hear such a thing as this of any of them 1 It
is an unexampled thing, 0 judges, a sort of prodigy among
the Sicilians, and among all the Greeks. I would not have
believed that story about the statues, if I had not seen them
myself uprooted aiid lying on the ground ; because it is
a custom among all the Greeks to think that honours paid to
men by monuments of that sort, are, to some extent, conse
crated, and under the protection of the gods. Therefore,
when the Rhodians, almost single-handed, carried on the first
war against Mithridates, and withstood all his power and his
most vigorous attacks on their walls, and shores, and fleets, —
when they, beyond all other nations, were enemies to the
king ; still, even then, at the time of imminent danger to
their city, they did not touch his statue Which was among
III. AGAINST VERRES. 281
them in the most frequented place in their city. Perhaps
there might seem some inconsistency in preserving the effigy
and image of the man, when they were striving to overthrow
the man himself : but still I saw, when I was among them,
that they had a religious feeling in those matters handed
down to them from their ancestors, and that they argued in
this way ; — that as to the statue, they regarded the period
when it had been erected ; but as to the man, they regarded
the fact of his waging war against them, and being an enemy.
LXVI. You see, therefore, that the custom and religious
feeling of the Greeks, which is accustomed to defend the
monuments of enemies, even at a time of actual war, could
not, even in a time of profound peace, protect the statues of
a praetor of the Roman people. The men of Taxiromenium,
which is a city in alliance1 with us, most quiet men, who
were formerly as far removed as possible from the injuries of
our magistrates, owing to the protection the treaty was to
them ; yet even they did not hesitate to overturn that
man's statue. But when that was removed, they allowed the
pedestal to remain in the forum, because they thought it
would tell more strongly against him, if men knew that
his statue had been thrown down by the Tauromeuians, than
if they thought that none had ever been erected. The men
of Tyndarus threw down his statue in the forum ; and for the
same reason left the horse without a rider. At Leontini,
even in that miserable and desolate city, his statue in the
gymnasium was thrown down. For why should I speak
of the Syracusans, when that act was not a private act of the
Syracusans, but was done by them in common with all their
neighbouring allies, and withal most the whole province ?
How great a multitude, how vast a concourse of men is said
to have been present when his statues were pulled down and
ovei'turned ! But where was this done ? In the most fre
quented and sacred place of the whole city ; before Serapis
himself, in the very entrance and vestibule of the temple.
1 The fcederatce civitates were those states which were connected with
Rome by a treaty, fcedus. The name did not include Roman colonies, or
Latin colonies, or any place which had obtained the Roman civitas.
They were independent states, yet under a general liability to furnish a
contingent for the Roman army ; they were nearly all confined within
the limits of Italy, though Gades, Saguntum and Massilia were excep
tions, as well as Tauromenium. Vide Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 427.
282 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
And if Metellus had not acted with great vigour, and by
his authority, and by a positive edict forbidden it, there would
not have been a trace of a statue of that man left in all
Sicily.
And I am not afraid of any of these things seeming to have
been done in consequence of my arrival, much less in conse
quence of my instigation. All those things were done, not
only befoi'e I arrived in Sicily, but before he reached Italy.
While I was in Sicily, no statue was thrown down. Hear now
what was done after I departed from thence.
LXVII. The senate of Centuripa decreed, and the people
ordered, that the quaestors should issue a contract for taking
down whatever statues there were of Caius VeiTes himself, of
his father, and of his son ; and that while such demolition
was being executed, there should be not less than thirty
senators present. Remark the soberness and dignity of that
city. They neither chose that those statues should remain in
their city which they themselves had given against their will,
under the pressure of authority and violence ; nor the statues
of that man, against whom they themselves (a thing which
they never did before) had sent by a public vote commissions
and deputies, with the most weighty testimony, to Rome.
And they thought that it would be a more important thing
if it seemed to have been done by public authority, than
by the violence of the multitude. When, in pursuance of
this design, the people of Centuripa had publicly destroyed
his statues, Metellus hears of it. He is very indignant ; he
summons before him the magistrates of Centuripa and the ten
principal citizens. He threatens them with measures of great
severity, if they do not replace the statues. They report the
matter to the senate. The statues, which could do no good
to his cause, are replaced ; the decrees of the people of Cen
turipa, which had been passed concerning the statues, are not
taken away. Here I can excuse some of the actors. I cannot
at all excuse Metellus, a wise man, if he acts foolishly. What ?
did he think it would look like a crime in Verres, if his
statues were thrown down, a thing which is often done by the
wind, or by some accident 1 There could be in such a fact as
that no charge against the man, no reproof of him. Whence,
then, does the charge and accusation arise 1 From the inten
tion and will of the people by whom it was caused.
III. AGAINST VERRES. 283
LXVIII. I, if 'Metellus had not compelled the men of Cen-
turipa to replace the statues, should say, " See, 0 judges, what
exceeding and bitter indignation the injuries of that man
have implanted in the minds of our allies and friends ; when
that most friendly and faithful city of Centuripa, which is
connected with the Roman people by so many reciprocal good
offices, that it has not only always loved our republic, but has
also shown its attachment to the very name of Roman in the
person of every private individual, has decided by public re
solution and by the public authority that the statues of Caius
Verres ought not to exist in it." I should recite the decrees
of the people of Centuripa ; I should extol that city, as with
the greatest truth I might ; I should relate that ten thousand
of those citizens, the bravest and most faithful of our allies, —
that every one of the whole people resolved, that there ought
to be no monument of that man in their city. I should say
this if Metellus had not replaced the statues. I should now
wish to ask of Metellus himself, whether by his power and
authority he has at all weakened my speech 1 I think the
very same language is still appropriate. For, even if the
statues were ever so much thrown down, I could not show
them to you on the ground. This only statement could I use,
that so wise a city had decided that the statues of Caius
Verres ought to be demolished. And this argument Metellus
has not taken from me. He has even given me this addi
tional one ; he has enabled me to complain, if I thought fit,
that authority is exercised over our friends and allies with so
much injustice, that, even in the services they do people, they
are not allowed to use their own unbiassed judgment ; he has
enabled me to entreat you to form your conjectures, how you
suppose Lucius Metellus behaved to me in those matters in
which he was able to injure me, when he behaved with such
palpable partiality in this one in which he could be no hin
drance to me. But I am not angry with Metellus, nor do I
wish to rob him of his excuse which he puts forth to every
one, that he did nothing spitefully nor with any especial design.
LXIX. Now, therefore, it is so evident that you cannot
deny it, that no statue was given to you with the good will
of any one ; no money on account of statues, that was not
squeezed out and extorted by force. And, in making that
charge, I do not wish that alone to be understood, that you
284 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
got money to the amount of a hundred and twenty thousand
sesterces ; but much more do I wish to have this point seen
clearly, -which was proved at the same time, namely, how
great both is and was the hatred borne to you by the agri
culturists, and by all the Sicilians. And as to this point, what
your defence is to be I cannot guess. — " Yes, the Sicilians hate
me, because I did a great deal for the sake of the Roman
citizens." But they too are most bitter against you, and most
hostile. " I have the Roman citizens for my enemies, because
I defended the interests and rights of the allies." But the
allies complain that they were considered and treated by
you as enemies. " The agriculturists are hostile to me on
account of the tenths." Well ; they who cultivate land un-
taxed and free from this impost ; why do they hate you ?
why do the men of Halesa, of Centuripa, of Segesta, of Hali-
cya hate you? What race of men, what number of men,
what rank of men can you name that does not hate you,
whether they be Roman citizens or Sicilians 1 So that even
if I could not give a reason for their hating you, still I should
think that the fact ought to be mentioned; and that you also,
O judges, ought to hate the man whom all men hate. Will
you dare to say, either that the agriculturists, that all the
Sicilians, in short, think well of you, or that it has nothing to
•do with the subject what they think ? You will not dare to
say this, nor if you were to wish to do so would you be allowed.
For those equestrian statues erected by the Sicilians, whc.M
you affect to despise, and by the agriculturists, deprive
you of the power of saying that ; the statues, I mean, which
a little while before you came to the city you ordered to
be erected and to have inscriptions put upon them, to serve
as a check to the inclinations of all your enemies and accusers.
For who would be troublesome to you, or who would dare to
bring an action against you, when he saw statues erected to
you by traders, by agriculturists, by the common voice of all
Sicily ? What other class of men is there in that province ?
— None. Therefore he is not only loved, but even honoured
by the whole province, and also by each separate portion of it,
according to their class. Who will dare to touch this man ?
Can you then say that the evidence of agriculturists, of tra
ders, and of all the Sicilians against you, ought to be no
objection to you, when you hoped to be able to extinguish all
III. AGAINST VERRES. 285
your unpopularity and infamy by placing their names in an
inscription on your statues ? Or, if you attempted to add
honour to your statues by their authority, shall I not be able
to corroborate my argument by the dignity of those same
men 1 Unless, perchance, in that matter, some little hope-
still consoles you, because you were popular among the far
mers of the revenues : but I have taken cai*e, through my
diligence, that that popularity should not serve, — you have
contrived, by your own wisdom, to show that it ought to be
an injury to you. Listen, 0 judges, to the whole affair in a
few words.
LXX. In the collecting the tax on pasture lands in Sicil}',
there is a sub-collector of the name of Lucius Carpinatius,
who both for the sake of his own profit, and perhaps because
he thought it for the interest of his partners, cultivated the
favour of Verres to the neglect of everything else. He, while
he was attending the prsetor about all the markets, and never
leaving him, had got into such familiarity with, and aptitude
at the practice of selling Verres's decrees and decisions, and
managing his other concerns, that he was considered almost a
second Timarchides. He was in one respect still more impor
tant ; because he also lent money at usury to those who were
purchasing anything of the pra)tor. And this usury, 0
judges, was such that even the profit from the other trans
actions was inferior to the gain obtained by it. For the
money which he entered as paid to those with whom he was
dealing, he entered also under the name of Verres's secretary,
or of Timarchides, or even under Verres's own name, as
received from them. And besides that, he lent other large
sums belonging to Verres, of wLich he made no entry at all,
in his own name. Originally this Carpinatius, before he had
become so intimate with Verres, had often written letters to the
shareholders about his unjust actions. But Canuleius, who
had an agency at Syracuse, in the harbour, had also written
accounts to his shareholders of many of Verres's robberies,
giving instances, especially, concerning things which had been
exported from Syracuse without paying the harbour dues.
But the same company was farming both the harbour dues
and the taxes on pasture land. And thus it happened that
there were many things which we could state and produce
against Verres from the letters of that company. But it hap-
286 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
pened that Carpinatius, who had by this time become con
nected with him by the greatest intimacy, and also by com
munity of interests, afterwards sent frequent letters to his
partners, speaking of his exceeding kindness, and of his ser
vices to their common property. And in truth, as he was
used to do and to decree everything which Carpinatius
requested him, Carpinatius also began to write still more
flaming accounts to his shareholders, in order, if possible,
utterly to efface the recollection of all that he had written
before. But at last, when Verres was departing, he sent
letters to them, to beg them to go out in crowds to meet him
and to give him. thanks ; and to promise zealously that they
would do whatever he desired them. And the shareholders
did so, according to the old custom of farmers ; not because
they thought him deserving of any honour, but because they
thought it was for their own interest to be thought to remem
ber kindness, and to be grateful for it. They expressed their
thanks to him, and said that Carpinatius had often sent letters
to them mentioning his good offices.
LXXI. When he had made answer that he had done those
things gladly, and had greatly extolled the services of Carpi
natius, he charges a friend of his, who at that time was the
chief collector of that company, to take care diligently, and to
make sure that there was nothing in any of the letters of any
of the partners which could tell against his safety and reputa
tion. Accordingly he, having got rid of the main body of
the shareholders, summons the collectors of the tenths, and
communicates the business to them. They resolve and deter
mine that those letters in which any attack was made on the
character of Caius Verres shall be removed, and that care be
taken that that business shall not by any possibility be any
injury to Caius Verres. If I prove that the collectors of the
tenths passed this resolution, — if I make it evident that,
according to this decree, the letters were removed, what more
would you wait for 1 Can I produce to you any affair more
absolutely decided 1 Can I bring before your tribunal any
criminal more fully condemned ? But condemned by whose
judgment 1 By that, forsooth, of those men whom they who
wish for severe tribunals think ought to decide on causes, — by
the judgment of the farmers, whom the people is now de
manding to have for judges, and concerning whom, that we
III. AGAINST VEREBS. 287
may have them for judges, we at this moment see a law pro
posed, not by a man of our body, not by a man born of the
equestrian order, not by a man of the noblest birth : the
collectors of the tenths, that is to say, the chiefs, and, as it
were, the senators of the farmers, voted that these letters
should be removed out of sight. I have men, who were pre
sent, whom I can produce, to whom I will entrust this proof,
most honourable and wealthy men, the very chiefs of the
equestrian order, on whose high credit (he very speech and
cause of the man who has proposed .-iiis law mainly relies.
They shall come before you ; they shall say what they deter
mined. Indeed, if I know the men properly, they will not
speak falsely. For they were able, indeed, to put letters to
their community out of sight ; they have not been able to put
out of sight their owu good faith and conscientiousness.
Therefore the Roman knights,1 who condemned you by their
judgment, have not been willing to be condemned in the judg
ment of those judges. Do you now consider whether you
prefer to follow their decision or their inclination.
LXXII. But see now, how far the zeal of your friends,
your own devices, and the inclination of those partners aid
you. I will speak a little more openly ; for I am not afraid
of any one thinking that I am saying this in the spirit of an
accuser rather than with proper freedom. If the collectors
had not removed those letters according to the resolution of
the farmers of the tenths, I could only say against you what
I had found in those letters ; but now that the resolution has
been passed, and the letters have been removed, I may say
whatever I can, and the judge may suspect whatever he
chooses. I say that you exported from Syracuse an immense
weight of gold, of silver, of ivory, of purple ; much cloth
from Melita, much embroidered stuff, much furniture of
Delos, many Corinthian vessels, a great quantity of corn, an
immense load of honey ; and that on account of these things,
because no port dues were paid on them, Lucius Canuleius,
who was the agent in the harbour, sent letters to his partners.
Does this appear a sufficiently grave charge ? None, I think,
can be graver. What will Hortensius say in defence ? Will he
demand that I produce the letters of Canuleius 1 Will he
say that a charge of this sort is worthless unless it be sup-
1 See the argument to the next oration.
288 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
ported by letters 1 I shall cry out that the letters have been
put out of the way ; that by a resolution of the shareholders
the proofs and evidences of his thefts have been taken from
me. He must either contend that this has not been done, or
he must bear the brunt of all my weapons. Do you deny
that this was done? I am glad to hear that defence. I
descend into the arena ; for equal terms and an equal contest
are before its. I will produce witnesses, and I will produce
many at the same time ; since they were together when this
took place, they shall be together now also. When they are
examined, let them be bound not only by the obligation of
their oath and regard for their character, but also by a com
mon consciousness of the truth. If it be proved that this
did take place as I say it did, will you be able to say, 0 Hor-
tensius, that there was nothing in those letters to hurt Verres1?
You not only will not say so, but you will not even be able
to say this, — that there was not as much in them as I say there
was. This then is what you have brought about by your
wisdom and by your interest ; that, as I said a little while
ago, you have given me the greatest licence for accusing, and
the judges the most ample liberty to believe anything.
LXXIII. But though this be the case, still I will invent
nothing. I will recollect that I have not taken a criminal to
accuse, but that I have received clients to defend ; and that
you ought to hear the cause not as it might be produced by
me, but as it has been brought to me ; that I shall satisfy the
Sicilians, if I diligently set forth what I have known myself
in Sicily, and what T have heard from them ; that I shall
satisfy the Roman people, if I fear neither the violence nor
the influence of any one ; that I shall satisfy you, if by my
good faith and diligence I give you an opportunity of deciding
correctly and honestly ; that I shall satisfy myself, if I do not
depart a hair's breadth from that course of life which 1 have
proposed to myself. Wherefore, you have no ground to fear
that I will invent anything against you. You have cause even
to be glad ; for I shall pass over many things which I know to
have been done by you, because they are either too infamous,
or scarcely credible. I will only discuss this whole affair of this
society. That you may now hear the truth, I will ask, Was
such a resolution passed 1 When I have ascertained that, I
will ask, Have the letters been removed ? When that too, is
III. AGAINST VERREb. 289
proved, you will understand the matter, even if I say nothing.
If they who passed this resolution for his sake — namely, the
Roman knights — were now also judges in his case, they would
beyond all question condemn that man, concerning whom
they knew that letters which laid bare his robberies had been
sent to themselves, and had been removed by their own reso
lution. He, therefore, who must have been condemned by
those Roman knights who desire everything to turn out for
his interest, and who have been most kindly treated by him,
can he, 0 judges, by any possible means or contrivance be
acquitted by you?
And that you may not suppose that those things which have
been removed out of the way, and taken from you, were all so
carefully hidden, and kept so secretly, that with all the dili
gence which I am aware is universally expected of me nothing
concerning them has been able to be arrived at or discovered,
I must tell you that, whatever could by any means or contri
vance be found out, has been found out, 0 judges. You shall
see in a moment the man detected in the very act ; for as I
have spent a great part of my life in attending to the causes
of farmers, and have paid great attention to that body, I
think that I am sufficiently acquainted with their customs by
experience and by intercourse with them.
LXXIV. Therefore, when I ascertained that the letters of
the company were removed out of the way, I made a calcula
tion of the years that that man had been in Sicily ; then I
inquired (what was exceedingly easy to discover) who during
those years had been the collectors of that company, — in whose
care the records had been. For I was aware that it was the
custom of the collectors who kept the records, when they gave
them up to the new collector, to retain copies of the docu
ments themselves. And therefore I went in the first place
to Lucius Vibius, a Roman knight, a man of the highest con
sideration, who, I ascertained, had been collector that very
year about which I particularly had to inquire. I came upon
the man unexpectedly when he was thinking of other things.
I investigated what I could, and inquired into everything. I
found only two small books, which had been sent by Lucius
Canuleius to the shareholders from the harbour at Syracuse ;
in which there was entered an account of many months, and
of things exported in Verres's name without having paid har-
u
290 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
bour dues. These I sealed up immediately. These •were
documents of that sort which of all the papers of the com
pany I was most anxious to find ; but still I only found
enough, 0 judges, to produce to you as a sample, as it were.
But still, whatever is in these books, however unimportant it
may seem to be, will at all events be undeniable ; and by this
you will be able to form your conjectures as to the rest. Read
for me, I beg, this first book, and then the other.
[The books of Canuleius are read.~\
I do not ask now whence you got those four hundred jars
of honey, or such quantities of Maltese cloth, or fifty cushions
for sofas, or so many candelabra ; — I do not, I say, inquire at
present where you got these things ; but, how you could want
such a quantity of them, that I do ask. I say nothing about
the honey ; but what could you want with so many Maltese
garments ? as if you were going to dress all your friends'
wives j — or with so many sofa cushions 1 as if you were going
to furnish all their villas.
LXXV. As in these little books there are only the accounts
of a few months, conjecture in your minds what they must
have been for the whole three years. This is what I contend
for. From these small books found in the house of one col
lector of the company, you can form some conjecture how
great a robber that man was in that province ; what a number
of desires, what different ones, what countless ones he in
dulged ; what immense sums he made not only in money, but
invested also in articles of this sort ; which shall be detailed
to you more fully another time. At present listen to this.
By these exportations, of which the list was read to you, he
writes that the shareholders had lost sixty thousand sesterces
by the five per cent, due on them as harbour dues at Syra
cuse. In a few months, therefore, as these little insignificant
books show, things were stolen by the pra5tor and exported
from one single town of the value of twelve hundred thou
sand sesterces. Think now, as the island is one which is
accessible by sea on all sides, what you can suppose was ex
ported from other places ? from Agrigentum, from Lilybseum,
from Panorrnus, from Thermae, from Halesa, from Catina,
from the other towns ? And what from Messana ? the place
which he thought safe for his purpose above all others, —
where he was always easy and comfortable in his mind, because
III. AGAINST YERKE8. 291
he had selected the Mamertines as men to whom he could send
everything which was either to be preserved carefully, or ex
ported secretly. After these books had been found, the rest
were removed and concealed more carefully ; but we, that all
men may see that we are acting without any ulterior motive,
are content with these books which we have produced.
LXXVI. Now we will return to the accounts of the societj'.
of money received and paid, which they could not possibly
remove honestly, and to your friend Carpinatius. We in
spected at Syracuse accounts of the company made up by
Carpinatius, which showed by many items that many of the
men who had paid money to Verres, had borrowed it of
Carpinatius. That will be clearer than daylight to you, O
judges, when I produce the very men who paid the money ;
for you will see that the times at which, as they were in
danger, they bought themselves off, agree with the records of
the company not only as to the years, but even as to the
months.
While we were examining this matter thoroughly, and
holding the documents actually in our hands, we see on a
sudden erasures of such a sort as to appear to be fresh wounds
inflicted on papers. Immediately, having a suspicion of some
thing wrong, we bent our eyes and attention on the names
themselves. Money was entered as having been received from
Caius Verrutius the son of Caius, in such a way that the letters
had been let stand down to the second R, all the rest was an
erasure. A second, a third, a fourth — there were a great many
names in the same state. As the matter was plain, so also
was the abominable and scandalous worthlessness of the
accounts. We began to inquire of Carpinatius who that Ver
rutius was, with whom he had such extensive pecuniary deal
ings. The man began to hesitate, to look away, to colour.
Because there is a provision made by law with respect to the
accounts of the farmers, forbidding their being taken to
Rome ; in order that the matter might be as clear and as
completely proved as possible, I summon Carpinatius before
the tribunal of Metellus, and produce the accoxmts of the
company in the forum. There is a great rush of people to
the place ; and as the partnership existing between Carpina
tius and that praetor, and his usury, were well known, all
people were watching with the most eager expectation to see
what was contained in the accounts.
292 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
LXXVII. I bring the matter before Metellus ; I state to
him that I have seen the accounts of the shareholders, that
in these there is a long account of one Caius Verrutius made
up of many items, and that I saw, by a computation of the
years and months, that this Verrutius had had no account at
all with Carpinatius, either before the arrival of Caius Verres,
or after his departure. I demand that Carpinatius shall give
me an answer who that Verrutius is ; whether he is a mer
chant, or a broker, or an agriculturist, or a grazier ; whether
he is in Sicily, or whether he has now left it. All who were
in. the court cried out at once that there had never been any
one in Sicily of the name of Verrutius. I began to press the
man to answer me who he was, where he was, whence he
came; why the servant of the company who made up the
accounts always made a blunder in the name of Verrutius at
the same place 1 And I made this demand, not because I
thought it of any consequence that he should be compelled to
answer me these things against his will, but that the rob
beries of one, the dishonesty of the other, and the audacity
of both might be made evident to all the world. And so I
leave him in the court, dumb from fear and the conscious
ness of. his crimes, terrified out of his wits, and almost fright
ened to death ; I take a copy of the accounts in the forum,
with a great crowd of men standing round me ; the most
eminent men in the assembly are employed in making the
copy; the letters and the erasures are faithfully copied and
imitated, and transferred from the accounts into books.
The copy was examined and compared with the original
with the greatest care and diligence, and then sealed up by
most honourable men. If Carpinatius would not answer me
then, do you, 0 Verres, answer me now, who you imagine this
Verrutius, who must almost be one of your own family, to be.
Tt is quite impossible that you should not have known a man
in your own province, who, I see, was in Sicily while you
were praetor, and who, I perceive from the accounts them
selves, was a very wealthy man. And now, that this may not
be longer in obscurity, advance into the middle,1 open the
volume, the copy of the accounts, so that every one may be
able to see now, not the traces only of that man's avarice, but
the very bed in which it lay.
1 This is said of the officers of the court who have the accounts in
their keeping during the trial.
III. AGAINST VERRES. 29o
LXXVIII. You see the word Verrutius ? — You sec the
first letters untouched 1 you see the last part of the name,
the tail of Verres, smothered in the erasure, as in the mud.
The original accounts, 0 judges, are in exactly the same state
us this copy. — What are you waiting for? What more do you
want ? You, Verres, why are you sitting there ? Why do
you delay 1 for either you must show us Verrutius, or confess
that you yourself are Verrutius. The ancient orators are
extolled, the Crassi and Antonii, because they had the skill to
efface the impression made by an accusation with great clear
ness, and to defend the causes of accused persons with elo
quence. It was not, forsooth, in ability only that they
surpassed those who are now employed here as counsel, but
also in good fortune. No one, in those times, committed such
crimes as to leave no room for any defence ; no one lived in
such a manner that no part of his life was free from the most
extreme infamy ; no one was detected in such manifest guilt,
that, shameless as he had been in the action, he seemed still
more shameless if he denied it.
But now what can Hortensius do 1 Can he argue against
the charges of avarice by panegyrics on his client's economy ?
He is defending a man thoroughly profligate, thoroughly
licentious, thoroughly wicked. Can he lead your attention
away from this infamy and profligacy of his, and turn them
into some other direction by a mention of his bravery 1 But
a man more inactive, more lazy, one who is more a man
among women, a debauched woman among men, cannot be
found. — But his manners are affable. Who is more obstinate 1
more rude 1 more arrogant 1 — But still all this is withoiit any
injury to any one. Who has ever been more furious, more
treacherous, and more cruel? With such a defendant and
such a cause, what could all the Crassus's and Antonins's in
the world do ? This is all they would do, as I think, 0 Hor
tensius ; they would have nothing to do with the cause at
all, lest by contact with the impudence of another they might
lose their own characters for virtue. For they come to plead
causes free and unshackled, so as not, if they did not choose
to act shamelessly in defending people, to be thought un
grateful for abandoning them.
294 CICERO'S ORATIONS
THE THIRD BOOK OF THE SECOND PLEADING IN
THE ACCUSATION AGAINST CAIUS VERRES.
ON THE COUNT RELATING TO CORN.
THE ARGUMENT.
A great part of this speech is occupied with charges against Verres of
extortion committed with respect to the decurice or tenths. " The
decurice formed a part of the vectigalia of the Romans, and were paid
by subjects whose territory, either by conquest, or by deditio, had
become the property of the state. They consisted, as the name
denotes, of a tithe or tenth of the produce of the soil, levied upon the
cultivators (aratores) or occupiers (possessores) of the lands ; which
from being subject to this payment were called agri decumani. ... It
appears from Cicero (c. Verr. act. ii. lib. Hi.) that the Romans, on
reducing Sicily to a province, allowed to the old inhabitants a con
tinuance of their ancient rights, and that, with some few exceptions,
the territory of all the states was subjected, as formerly, to the pay
ment of a tithe on corn, wine, oil, and the ' fruges minutse.' * It
was further determined that the place and time of paying these tithes
to the decumani should ' be and continue ' as settled by the law of king
Hiero (Lex Hieronica), which enacted severe penalties against any
arator who did not pay his due, as well as against the decumani
who exacted more than their tenth. . . . The name of decumani was
also applied to the farmers of these tributes, who purchased them
frcm the state, and then collected them on their own account."
In fact " the revenues which Rome derived from conquered countries,
consisting chiefly of tolls, tithes, harbour duties, &c. . . . were chiefly
let out, or, as the Romans expressed it, sold by the censors in Rome
itself to the highest bidders, (Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 7.) ... The^ tithes
raised in the province of Sicily alone, with the exception of those ot
wine, oil, and garden produce, were not sold at Rome, but in the
district of Sicily itself, according to a practice established by Hiero,
(Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 64, 33.) The persons who undertook the farming
of the public revenue, of course, belonged to the wealthiest Romans ;
and down to the end of the republic, as well as during the earlier part
of the empire, the farming of the public revenues was almost exclu
sively in the hands of the cquites, whence the words equites and
publicani are sometimes used as synonymous, ( Cic. c.Verr. i. 51, 52, 71.)
1 " Bruges minut£B ;" probably pulse. — Riddle's Lat. Diet, in v.
Mimdus.
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 295
.... The publicani had to give security to the state for the sum at
which they bought one or more branches of the revenue in a province ;
and as no one person was rich enough to give sufficient security, a
number of eqnites generally united together and formed a company
(socii, societas, or corpus) which was 'recognised by the state, and by
which they were enabled to carry on their undertakings on a large
scale. The shares which each partner in such a company took in the
business were called partes, and if they were small particulce. The
responsible person in each company, and the one who contracted with
the state, was called manceps, but there was also a magister to manage
the business of each company, who resided at Rome, and kept up an
extensive correspondence with the agents in the provinces, (Cic. c.
Verr. ii. 74.) He seems to have held his office only for one year ; his
representative in the province was called submagister, who had to
travel about and superintend the actual business of collecting the
revenues. . . . Nobody but a Roman citizen was allowed to become a
member of a company of publicani; freedmen and slaves were excluded,
(Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 39.) No Roman magistrate, however, or governor
of a province, was allowed to take any share whatever in a company of
publicani, (Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 57) ; a regulation which was chiefly
intended as a protection against the oppression of the provincials . .
The actual levying or collecting of the taxes in the provinces was per
formed by an inferior class of men, who were said operas publicanis
dare, or esse in operis societatis, (Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 41.) They were
engaged by the publicani, and consisted of freemen as well as slaves,
Romans as well as provincials." (Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 77.) — Smith, Diet.
Ant. pp. 316, 806, vv. Decumce, Publicani.
Verres had broken the law which forbade a governor of a province to
hold shares in a company which farmed the revenue ; and as he had
therefore a personal interest in increasing the taxes, he committed
unexampled acts of extortion himself, and protected those who com
mitted similar acts. And in many other respects he had plundered
the cultivators of the public domain, whom I have called in this trans
lation " agriculturists," not using the word " farmers," by which word
I have rendered " publicani."
The medimnus, as we see, (c. 45, 46), was equal to six modii, and con
tained within a fraction of twelve English gallons, or a bushel and
a half.
I. EVERY man, 0 judges, who, without being prompted by
any enmity, or stung by any private injury, or tempted by
any reward, prosecutes another for the good of the republic,
ought to consider, not only how great a burden he is taking
upon himself at the time, but also how much trouble he
is courting for the remainder of his life. For he imposes on
himself a law of innocence, of moderation, and of all virtues,
who demands from another an account of his life ; and he does
so the more if, as I said before, he does this being urged by
no other motive except a desire for the common good. For
296 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
if any one assumes to himself to correct the manners of others,
and to reprove their faiilts, who will pardon him, if he himself
turn aside in any particular from the strict line of duty ?
Wherefore, a citizen of that sort is the more to be praised and
beloved by all men for this reason also,- — that he does not
only remove a worthless citizen from the republic, but he also
promises and binds himself to be such a man as to be com
pelled, not only by an ordinary inclination to virtue and
duty, but by even some more unavoidable principle, to live
virtuously and honourably. And, therefore, 0 judges, that
most illustrious and most eloquent man, Lucius Crassus, was
often heard to say that he did not repent of anything so
much as having ever proceeded against Caius Carbo ; for by
so doing he had his inclination as to everything less un
controlled, and he thought, too, that his way of life was
remarked by more people than he liked. And he, fortified
as he was by the protection of his own genius and fortune,
was yet hampered by this anxiety which he had brought upon
himself, before his judgment was fully formed, at his entrance
into life ; on which account virtue and integrity is less
looked for from those who xindertake this business as young
men, than from those who do so at a riper age ; for they, for
the sake of credit and ostentation, become accusers of others
before they have had time to take notice how much more
free the life of those who have accused no one is. We who
have already shown both what we could do, and what judg
ment we had, unless we could easily restrain our desires,
should never, of our own accord, deprive ourselves of all
liberty and freedom in our way of life.
II. And I have a greater burden on me than those who
have accused other men, (if that deserve to be called a burden
which you bear with pleasure and delight,) — but still I have
in one respect undertaken a greater burden than others who
have done the same thing, because all men are required to
abstain most especially from those vices for which they have
reproved another. Have you accused any thief or rapacious
man? You must 'for ever avoid all suspicion of avarice.
Have you prosecuted any spiteful or cruel man ? You must
for ever take care not to appear in any matter the least harsh
or severe. A seducer? an adulterer ? You must take care
most diligently that no trace of licentiousness be ever seen in
IV. AGAINST VERUES. -97
your eoiKlu2t. In short, everything whic^ y.-u have im
peached in. another must be earnestly avoided by you. your
self. In truth, not only no accuser, but no reprover even can
be endured, "who is himself detected in the vice which he
reproves in another. I, in the case of one man, am finding
fault with every vice which can exist in a wicked and
abandoned man. I say that there is no indication of lust, of
wickedness, of audacity, which you cannot see clearly in the
life of that one man. In the case of this criminal, I, 0 judges,
establish this law against myself; that I must so live as
to appear to be, and always to have been, utterly unlike that
man, not only in all my actions and words, but even in that
arrogance and haughtiness of countenance and eyes which
you see before you. I will bear without uneasiness, 0 judges,
that that course of life which was previously agreeable to me
of my own accord, shall now, by the law and conditions
I have laid down for myself, become necessary for me.
III. And in the case of this man you often, 0 Hortensius,
are asking me, under the pressure of what enmity or what
injury I have come forward to accuse him. I omit all men
tion of my duty, and of my connexion with the Sicilians ; I
answer you as to the point of enmity. Do you think there
is any greater enmity than that arising from the opposite
opinions of men, and the contrariety of their wishes and incli
nations ? Can he who thinks good faith the holiest thing in
life avoid being an enemy to that man who, as qua3stor, dared
to despoil, to desert, to betray, and to attack his consul, whose
counsels he had shared, whose money he had received, with
all whose business affairs he had been entrusted 1 Can he
who reverences modesty and chastity behold with equanimity
the daily adulteries, the dissolute manners of that man, the
domestic pandering to his passions ? Can he who wishes to
pay due honours to the immortal gods, by any means avoid
being an enemy to that man who has plundered all the
temples, who has dared to commit his robberies even on the
track of the wheels of the sacred car ? l Must not he who
thinks that all men ought to live under equal laws, be very
hostile to you, when he considers the variety and caprice
of your decrees 1 Must not he who grieves at the injuries
1 Thensa was the chariot or car on which the images of the gods were
carried in the Ludi Circenses.
298 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
of the allies and the distresses of the provinces be excited
against you by the plundering of Asia, the harassing of
Pamphylia, the miserable state and the agony of Sicily?
Ought not he who desires the rights and the liberty of the
Roman citizens to be held sacred among all men, — to be even
more than an enemy to you, when here collects your scourg-
ings, your executions, your crosses erected for the punishment
of Roman citizens ? Or if he had in any particular made
a decree contrary to my interest unjustly, would you then
think that I was fairly an enemy to him ; but now that
he has acted contrary to the interests, and property, and
advantage, and inclination, and welfare of all good men,
do you ask why I am an enemy to a man towards whom the
whole Roman people is hostile ? I, who above all other men
ought to undertake, to gratify the desires of the Roman
people, even a greater burden and duty than my strength
perhaps is equal to.
IV. What? cannot even those matters, which seem more
trifling, move any one's mind, — that the worthlessness and
audacity of that man should have a more easy access to your
own friendship, 0 Hortensius, and to that of other groat and
noble men, than the virtue and integrity of any one of us?
You hate the industry of new men; you despise their eco
nomy; you scorn their modesty; you wish their talents and
virtues to be depressed and extinguished. You are fond
of Verres : I suppose so. If you are not gratified with his
virtue, and his innocence, and his industry, and his modesty,
and his chastity, at least you are transported at his conversa
tion, his accomplishments, and his high breeding. He has no
such gifts ; but, on the contrary, all his qualities are stained
with the most extreme disgrace and infamy, with most extra
ordinary stupidity and boorishness. If any man's house is
open to this man, do you think it is open, or rather that it
is yawning and begging something] He is a favourite of
your factors, of your valets. Your freedmen, your slaves,
your housemaids, are in love with him. He, when he calls, is
introduced out of his turn; he alone is admitted, while others,
often most virtuous men, are excluded. From which it is
very easily understood that those people are the most dear to
you who have lived in such a manner that without your pro
tection they cannot be safe. What ? do you think this can
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 299
be endurable to any one, — that we should live on slender
incomes in such a way as not even to wish to acquire any
thing more ; that we should be content with maintaining our
dignity, and the goodwill of the Roman people, not by wealth,
but by virtue ; but that that man, having robbed every one
on all sides, and having escaped with impunity, should live
in prosperity and abundance? that all your banquets should
be decorated with his plate, your forum and hall of assembly
with his statues and pictures'? especially when, through your
own valour, you are rich in all such trophies? That it should
be Verres who adorns your villas with his spoils? That it
should be Verres who is vieing with Lucius Mummius : so that
the one appears to have laid waste more cities of the allies,
than the other overthrew belonging to the enemy? That the
one, unassisted, seems to have adorned more villas with the
decorations of temples, than the other decorated temples with
the spoils of the enemy? And shall he be dearer to you, in
order that others may more willingly become subservient to
your covetousness at their own risk?
V. But these topics shall be mentioned at another time,
and they have already been mentioned elsewhere. Let us
proceed to the other matters, after we have in a few words,
0 judges, begged your favourable construction. All through
our former speech we had your attention very carefully given
to us. It was very pleasing to us; but it will be -far more
pleasing, if you will be so kind as to attend to what follows ;
because in all the things which were said before, there was
some pleasure arising from the very variety and UjvsKy of
the subjects and of the charges. Now we are going to dis
cuss the affair of corn; which indeed in the greatness of the
iniquity exceeds nearly all the other charges, but will have
far less variety and agreeableness in the discussion. But it is
quite worthy of your authority and wisdom, 0 judges, in the
matter of careful hearing, to give no less weight to conscien
tiousness in the discharge of your duties, than to pleasure.
In inquiring into this charge respecting the corn, keep this iri
view, 0 judges, that you are going to inquire into the estates
and fortunes of all the Sicilians — into the property of all the
Roman citizens who cultivate land in Sicily — into the reve
nues handed down to you by your ancestors — into the life and
sustenance of the Roman people. And if these matters ap-
300 CICERO'S OKATIOXS.
pear to yon important — ay, and mcst important, — do not be
weary if they are pressed upon you from various points of
view, and at some length. It cannot escape the notice of any
one of you, 0 judges, that all the advantage and desirable
ness of Sicily, which is in any way connected with the conve
nience of the Roman people, consists mainly in its corn; for
in other respects we are indeed assisted by that province, but
as to this article, we are fed and supported by it. The case,
0 judges, will be divided under three heads in my accusa
tion: for, first, I shall speak of the collectors of the tenths;
secondly, of the corn which has been bought ; thirdly, of that
which has been valued.
VI. There is, 0 judges, this difference between Sicily and
other provinces, in the matter of tribute derived from the
lands ; that in the other provinces, either the tribute imposed
is of a fixed amount, which is called stipendiarium, as in the
case of the Spaniards and most of the Carthaginian provinces,
being a sort of reward of victory, and penalty for war ; or else
a contract exists between the state and the farmers, settled by
the censor, as is the case in Asia, by the Sempronian law.
But the cities in Sicily were received into our friendship and
alliance, retaining the same laws which they had before, and
that being subject to the Roman people on the same condi
tions as they had formerly been subject to their own princes.
Very few cities of Sicily were subdued in war by our ancestors,
and even in the case of those which were, though their land
was made the public domain of the Roman people, still it was
afterwards restored to them. That domain is regularly let
out to farmers by the censors. There are two federate cities,
whose tenths are not put up to auction ; the city of the
Mamertines and Taurominium. Besides these, there are five
cities without any treaty, free and enfranchised ; Centuripa,
Halesa, Segesta, Halicya, and Panormus. All the land of the
other states of Sicily is subject to the payment of tenths ; and
was so, before the sovereignty of the Roman people, by the
will and laws of the Sicilians themselves. See now the wisdom
of our ancestors, who, when they had added Sicily, so valuable
an assistant both in war and peace, to the republic, were so
careful to defend the Sicilians and to retain them in their
allegiance, that they not only imposed no new tax upon their
lands, but did not even alter the law of putting up for sale
IV. AGAINST VEBRES. 301
the contracts of the farmers of the tenths, or the time or place
of selling them ; so that they were to put them up for sale at
the regular time of year, at the same place, in Sicily, — in short,
in every respect as the law of Hiero directed ; they permitted
them still to manage their own affairs, and were not willing
that their minds should be disturbed even by a new name to
a law, much less by an actual new law. And so they resolved
that the farming of the tenths should always be put up to
auction according to the law of Hiero, in order that the dis
charge of that office might be the more agreeable if, though
the supreme power was changed, still, not only the laws of
that king, who was very dear to the Sicilians, but his name
also remained in force among them. This law the Sicilians
always used before Verres was pi'setor. He first dared to
root up and alter the established usages of them all, their
customs which had been handed down to them from their
ancestors, the conditions of their friendship with us, and the
rights secured to them by our alliance.
VII. And in this, this is the first thing I object to and
accuse you for, that in a custom of such long standing, and
so thoroughly established, you made any innovation at all.
Have you ever gained anything by this genius of yours?
Were you superior in prudence and wisdom to so many wise
and illustrious men who governed that province before you ?
That is your renown ; this praise is due to your genius and
diligence. I admit and grant this to you. I do know that,
at Rome, when you were praetor, you did transfer by your
edict the possession of inheritance from the children to
strangers, from the first heirs to the second, from the laws to
your own licentious covetousness. I do know that you cor
rected the edicts of all your predecessors, and gave possession '
of inheritance not according to the evidence of those who pro
duced the will, but according to theirs who said that a will
had been made. And I do know too that those new practices,
first brought forward and invented by you, were a very great
profit to you. I recollect, moreover, that you also abrogated
and altered the laws of the censors about the keeping the
public buildings in repair ; so that he might not take the
contract to whom the care of the building belonged ; so that
his guardians and relations might not consult the advantage
of their ward so as to prevent his being stripped of all his
302 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
property ; that you appointed a very limited time for the
work, in order to exclude others from the business ; but that
•with respect to the contractor you favoured, you did not
observe any fixed time at all. So that I do not marvel at
your having established a new law in the matter of the tenths ;
you, a man so wise, so thoroughly practised in praetorian
edicts and censorian laws. I do not wonder, I say, at your
having invented something ; but I do blame you, I do im
peach you, for having of your own accord, without any com
mand from the people, without the authority of the senate,
changed the laws of the province of Sicily. The senate per
mitted Lucius Octavius and Caius Gotta, the consuls, to put
up to auction at Rome the tenths of wine, and oil, and of
pulse, which before your time the quaestors had been in the
habit of putting up in Sicily ; and to establish any law with
respect to those articles which they might think fit. When
the contract was offered for sale, the farmers begged them to
add some clauses to the law, and yet not to depart from the
other laws of the censors. A man opposed this, who by acci •
dent was at Rome at that time ; your host, — your host, and
intimate friend, I say, 0 Verres, — Sthenius, of Thermae, who
is here present. The consuls examined into the matter.
When they had summoned many of the principal and most
honourable men of the state to form a council on the subject ;
according to the opinion of that council they gave notice that
they should put the tenths up to auction according to the law
of Hiero.
VIII. Was it not so 1 Men of the greatest wisdom, in
vested with the supreme authority, to whom the senate
had given the whole power of making laws respecting the
letting out the farming of the tributes, (and this power had
been ratified by the people, while only one Sicilian objected
to it,) would not alter the name of the law of Hiero, even
when the measure would have been accompanied by an aug
mentation of the revenue ; but you, a man of no wisdom, of
no authority, without any order from people or senate, while
all Sicily objected, abrogated the whole law of Hiero, to the
greatest injury and even destruction of the revenue. But
what law is this, 0 judges, which he amends, or rather
totally abrogates 1 A law framed with the greatest acuteness
and the greatest diligence, which gives up the cultivator of
IV. AGAINST VBERES. 303
the land to the collector of the tenths, guarded by so many
securities, that neither in the corn fields, nor on the threshing
floors, nor in the barns, nor while removing his corn privily,
nor while carrying it away openly, can the cultivator defraud
the collector of one single grain without the severest punish
ment. The law has been framed with such care, that it is
plain that a man framed it who had no other revenues ; with
such acuteness that it was plain that he was a Sicilian ; with
such severity, that he was evidently a tyrant : by this law,
however, cultivating the land was an advantageous trade for
the Sicilian ; for the laws for the collectors of the tenths were
also drawn up so carefully that it is not possible for more than
the tenth to be extorted from the cultivator against his will.
And though all these things were settled in this way, after
so many years and even ages, Verres was found not only to
change, but entirely to overturn them, and to convert to
purposes of his own most infamous profit those regulations
which had long ago been instituted and established for the
safety of the allies and the benefit of the republic. In the
first instance he appointed certain men, collectors of the
tenths in name, in reality the ministers and satellites of his
desires ; by whom I will show that the province was for
three years so harassed and plundered, 0 judges, that it will
take many years and a long series of wise and incorruptible
governors to recover it.
IX. The chief of all those who were called collectors, was
Quintus Apronius, that man whom you see in court, concern
ing whose extraordinary wickedness you have heard the com
plaints of most influential deputations. Look, 0 judges, at the
face and countenance of the man ; and from that obstinacy
which he retains now in the most desperate circumstances,
you may imagine and recollect what his arrogance must have
been in Sicily. This Apronius is the man wh:>m Verres
(though he had collected together the most infamous men
from all quarters, and though he had taken with him no
small number of men like himself in worthlessness, licen
tiousness, and audacity,) still considered most like himself of
any man in the whole province. And so in a very short time
they became intimate, not because of interest, nor of reason,
nor of any introduction from mutual friends, but from the
baseness and similarity of their pursuits. You know the de-
304 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
praved and licentious habits of Verres. Imagine to your
selves, if you can, any one who can be in every respect equal
to him in the wicked and dissolute commission of every crime,
that man will be Apronius ; who, as he shows not only by his
life, but by his person and countenance, is a vast gulf and
whirlpool of every sort of vice and infamy. Him did Verres
employ as his chief agent in all his adulteries, in all his plun
dering of temples, in all his debaiiched banquets ; and the
similarity of their manners caused such a friendship and
unanimity between them, that Apronius, whom every one else
thought a boor and a barbarian, appeared to him alone an
agreeable and an accomplished man ; that, though every one
else hated him, and could not bear the sight of him, Verres
could not bear to be away from him ; that, though others
shunned even the banquets at which Apronius was to be pre
sent, Verres used the same cup with him ; lastly, that, though
the odour of Apronius's breath and person is such that even,
as one may say, the beasts cannot endure him, he appeared to
Verres alone sweet and pleasant. He sat next to him on the
judgment-seat ; he was alone with him in his chamber ; he
was at the head of his table at his banquets ; and especially
then, when he began to dance at the feast naked, while the
young son of the prsetor was sitting by.
X. This man, as I began to say, Verres selected for his
principal agent iu distressing and plundering the fortunes of
the cultivators of the land. To this man's audacity, and
wickedness, and cruelty, our most faithful allies and most
virtuous citizens were given up, 0 judges, by this prsetor, and
were placed at his mercy by new regulations and new
edicts, the entire law of Hiero, as I said before, having been
rejected and repudiated.
First of all, listen, 0 judges, to his splendid edict. " What
ever amount of tithe the collector declared that the cultivator
ought to pay, that amount the cultivator should be compelled
to pay to the collector." — How? Let him pay as much as
Apronius demands? What is this? is the regulation of
a praetor for allies, or the edict and command of an insane
tyrant to conquered enemies ? Am I to give as much as he
demands ? He will demand every grain that I can get out
of my land. Am I to give all ? Ay, and more too, if he
chooses. What, then, am I to do ? What do you think ? You
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 305
must either pay, or you will be convicted of having disobeyed
the edict. 0 ye immortal gods, what a state of things is this ?
For it is hardly credible. And indeed I am persuaded, 0 judges,
that, though you should think that all other vices are met
in this man, still this must seem false to you. For I myself,
though all Sicily told me of it, still should not dare to affirm
this to you, if I was not able to recite to you these edicts ?
from his own documents in those very words — as I will do. •
Give this, I pray you, to the clerk ; he shall read from the
register. Read the edict about the returns of property.
[The edict about the returns of property is read.]
He says I am not reading the whole. For that is what he
seems to intimate by shaking his head. What am I passing
over 1 is it that part where you take care of the interests of
the Sicilians, and show regard for the miserable cultivators '(
For you announce in your edict, that you will condemn the
collector in eightfold damages, if he has taken more than was
due to him. I do not wish anything to be passed over. Read
this also which he requires ; read every word.
[The edict about the eightfold damages is read.]
Does this mean that the cultivator is to prosecute the collec
tor at law ? It is a miserable and unjust thing for men to be
brought from the country into the forum, from the plough to
the courts of justice ; from habits of rustic life to actions and
trials to which they are •wholly unaccustomed.
XL When in all the other countries liable to tribute, of
Asia, of Macedonia, of Spain, of Gaul, of Africa, of Sicily, and
in those parts of Italy also which are so liable ; when in all
these, I say, the farmer in every case has a right to claim and
a power to distrain,1 but not to seize and take possession
without the interference of the law, you established regula
tions respecting the most virtuous and honest and honourable
class of men, — that is, respecting the cultivators of the soil, —
which are contrary to all other laws. Which is the most just,
for the collector to have to make his claim, or for the culti
vator to have to recover what has been unlawfully seized? for
them to go to trial when things are in their original state, or
when one side is ruined ? for him to be in possession of the
property who has acquired it by hard labour, or him who has
obtained it by bidding for it at an auction ? What more ?
1 See Professor Long's note on this passage.
x
CICERO'S ORATIONS.
They who cultivate single acres, who never cease from per
sonal labour, of which class there were a great number, and a
vast multitude among the Sicilians before you came as prsetor,
— what are they to do ? When they have given to Apronius
all he has demanded, are they to leave their allotments'? to
leave their own household gods? to come to Syracuse, in order
while you, forsooth, are preetor, to prosecute, by the equal law
which they will find there, Apronius, the delight and joy of
your life, in a suit for recovery of their property 1 But so be
it. Some fearless and experienced cultivator will be found,
who, when he has paid the collector as much as he says is
due, will seek to recover it by course of law, and will sue for
the eightfold penalty. I look for the vigour of the edict, for
the impartiality of the praBtor ; I espouse the cause of the
cultivator ; I wish to see Apronius condemned in the eight
fold penalty. What now does the cultivator demand 1 Nothing
but sentence for an eightfold penalty, according to the edict.
What says Apronius ? He is unable to object. What says the
praetor 1 He bids him challenge the judges. Let us, says he,
make out the decuries. What decuries? Those from my
retinue ; you will challenge the others. What 1 of what men,
is that retinue composed 1 Of Volusius the soothsayer, and
Cornelius the physician, and the other dogs whom you see
licking up the crumbs about my judgment-seat. For he
never appointed any judge or recuperator l from the proper
body.2 He said all men who possessed one clod of earth were
1 The recuperatores were a kind of judges, usually appointed by the
praetors in some particular kinds of action, and especially in those
relating to money.
2 The Latin word here is convenlus, which often occurs in these ora
tions ; properly it means any assembly of men, but when the Romans
had reduced foreign countries into the form of provinces, it assumed a
more definite meaning. Sometimes it was applied to the whole body of
Roman citizens, who were either permanently or temporarily settled in
a province. Also, in order to facilitate the administration of justice,
a province was divided into a number of districts, each of which was
called conventus . . . Roman citizens living in a province, at certain
times of the year, fixed by the proconsul, assembled in the chief town of
the district, and this meeting bore the name of conventus. At this con
ventus litigant, parties applied to the proconsul, who selected a number
of judges from the conventus to try their causes. The proconsul himsell
presided at the trial, and pronounced the sentence according to the
views of the judges who were his assessors. — Smith, Diet. Ant. in v-
Conventus.
IV. AGAINST VEERES. 307
unfairly prejudiced against the collectors. People had to sue
Apronius before these men who had not yet got rid of the
surfeit from his last banquet.
XII. What a splendid and memorable court ! what an im
partial decision ! what a safe resource for the cultivators of
the soil ! And that you may understand what sort of deci
sions are obtained in actions for the eightfold penalty, and what
sort of judges those selected from that man's retinue are con
sidered to be, listen to this. Do you think that any collector,
when this licence was allowed him of taking from the culti
vator whatever he claimed, ever did demand more than was
due 1 Consider yourselves in your own minds, whether you
think any one ever did so, especially when it might have
happened, not solely through .covetousness, but even through
ignorance. Many must have done so. But I say that all
extorted more, and a great deal more, than the proper tenths.
Tell me of one man, in the whole three years of your praetor-
ship, who was condemned in the eightfold penalty. Condemned,
indeed ! Tell me of one man who was ever prosecuted accord
ing to your edict. There was not, in fact, one cultivator who
was able to complain that injustice had been done to him;
not one collector who claimed one grain more as due to him
than really was due. Far from that. Apronius seized and
carried off whatever he chose from every one. In every dis
trict the cultivators, harassed and plundered as they were,
were complaining, and yet no instance of a trial can be found.
Why is this ? Why did so many bold, honourable, and highly
esteemed men — so many Sicilians, so many Roman knights —
when injured by one most worthless and infamous man, not
seek to recover the eightfold penalty, which had most un
questionably been incurred 1 What is the cause, what is the
reason 1 That reason alone, 0 judges, which you see, — because
they knew they should come off at the trial defrauded and
ridiculed. In truth, what sort of trial must that be, when
three of the profligate and abandoned retinue of Verres sat
on the tribunal under the name of judges? — slaves of Verres,
not inherited by him from his father, but recommended to
him by his mistress. The cultivator, forsooth, might plead
his cause; he might show that no com was left him by
Apronius, — that even his other property was seized; that he
himself had been driven away with blows. Those admirable
308 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
men would lay their heads together, they would chat to one
another about revels and harlots, if they could catch any when
leaving the prsetor. The cause would seem to be properly
heard : Apronius would have risen, full of his new dignity as
a knight; not like a collector all over dirt and dust, but
reeking with perfumes, languid with the lateness of the last
night's drinking party, with his first motion, and with his
breath he would have filled the whole place with the odour
of wine, of perfume, and of his person. He would have said,
what he repeatedly has said, that he had bought, not the
tenths, but the property and fortunes of the cultivators; that
he, Apronius, was not a collector, but a second Verres, — the
absolute lord and master of those men. And when he had
said this, those admirable men of Verres's train, the judges,
would deliberate, not about acquitting Apronius, but they
would inquire how they could condemn the cultivator himself
to pay damages to Apronius.
XIII. When you had granted this licence for plundering
the cultivators to the collectors of the tenths, — that is, to
Apronius, — by allowing him to demand as much as he chose,
and to carry off as much as he demanded, were you preparing
this defence for your trial, — that you had promised by edict
that you would assign judges in a trial for an eightfold
penalty ? Even if in truth you were to give power to the
cultivator, not only to challenge his judges, but even to pick
them out of the whole body of the Syracusan assembly, (a body
of most eminent and honourable men,) still no one could
bear this new sort of injustice, — that, when one has given up
the whole of one's produce to the farmer, and had one's pro
perty taken out of one's hands, then one is to endeavour to
• recover one's property and to seek its restitution by legal
, proceedings ; but when what is granted by the edict is, in
Iname indeed, a trial, but in reality a collusion of your atteud-
^ants, most worthless men, with the collectors, who are your
* partners, and besides that, with the judges, do you still dare to
mention that trial, especially when what you say is refuted,
not merely by my speech, but by the facts themselves? when
in all the distresses of the cultivators of the soil, and all the
injustice of the collectors, not only has no trial ever taken
place according to that splendid edict, but none has ever been
BO much as demanded? However, he will be more favourable
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 309
to the cultivators than he appears ; for the same man who
has announced in his edict that he will allow a trial against
the collectors, in which they shall be liable to an eightfold
penalty, had it also set down in his edict, that he would grant
a similar trial against the cultivators, in which they should be
liable to a fourfold penalty. Who now dares to say that this
man was unfavourably disposed or hostile to the cultivators ?
How much more lenient is he to them than to the collectors ?
He has ordered in his edict that the Sicilian magistrate should
exact from the cultivator whatever the collector declared
ought to be paid to him. What sentence has he left behind,
which can be pronounced against a cultivator of the soil ?
It is not a bad thing, says he, for that fear to exist ; so that,
when the money has been exacted from the cultivator, still
there will be behind a fear of the court of justice, to prevent
him from stirring himself. If you wish to exact money from
me by process of law, remove the Sicilian magistrate. If you
employ this violence, what need is there of a process of law 1
Moreover, who will there be who would not prefer paying to
your collectors what they demand, to being condemned in
four times the amount by your attendants.
XIV. But that is a splendid clause in the edict, that gives
notice that in all disputes which arise between the cultivator
and the collector, he will assign judges, if either party wishes
it. In the first place, what dispute can there be when he
who ought to make a claim, makes a seizure instead ? and
when he seizes, not as much as is due, but as much as he
chooses 1 and when he, whose property is seized, cannot pos
sibly recover his own by a suit at law ? In the second place,
this dirty fellow wants even in this to seem cunning and wily;
for he frames his edict in these words — " If either wishes it, I
will assign judges." How neatly does he think he is robbing
him ! He gives each party the power of choice ; but it makes
no difference whether he wrote — " If either wishes it," or " If
the collector wishes it." For the cultivator will never wish
for those judges of yours. What next 1 What sort of edicts
are those which he issued to meet particular occasions, at the
suggestion of Apronius ? When Quintus Septitius, a most
honourable man, and a Roman knight, resisted Apronius, and
declared that he would not pay more than a tenth, a sudden
special edict makes its appearance, that no one is to remove
his corn from the threshing-floor, before he has settled the
310 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
demands of the collector. Septitius put up with this injustice
also, and allowed his corn to be damaged by the rain, while
remaining on the threshing-floor ; when on a sudden that
most fruitful and profitable edict comes out, that every one
was to have his tenths delivered at the water-side before the
first of August. By this edict, it was not the Sicilians, (for
he had already sufficiently crushed and ruined them by his
previous edicts,) but all those Roman knights who had fancied
that they could preserve their rights against Apronius, excel
lent men, and highly esteemed by other prsetors, who were
delivered bound hand and foot into the power of Apronius.
For just listen and see what sort of edicts these are. " A man,"
says he, " is not to remove his corn from the threshing-floor,
unless he has settled all demands." This is a sufficiently strong'
inducement to making unfair demands ; for I had rather give
too much, than not remove my corn from the threshing-floor
at the proper time. But that violence does not affect Septi
tius, and some others like Septitius, who say, " I will rather
not remove my corn, than submit to an extortionate demand."
To these then the second edict is opposed. " You must have
delivered it by the first of August." I will deliver it then. —
" Unless you have settled the demands, you shall not remove
it." So the fixing of the day for delivering it at the waterside,
compelled the man to remove his corn from the threshing-
floor. And the prohibition to remove, unless the demand
were settled, made the settlement compulsory and not volun
tary.
XV. But what follows is not only contrary to the law of
Hiero, not only contrary to the customs of all former prsetors,
but even contrary to all the rights of the Sicilians, which
they have as granted them by the senate and people of Rome,
•—that they shall not be forced to give security1 to appear in any
courts of justice but their own. Verres made a regulation
that the cultivator should appear to an action brought by a
collector in any court which the collector might choose. So
that in this way also gain might accrue to Apronius, when
he dragged a defendant all the way from Leontini to Lily-
bseum to appear belbre the court there, by making false accu
sations against the wretched cultivators. Although that
device for false accusation was also contrived with singular
cunning, when he ordered that the cultivators should make a
1 See Professor Long's note on this passage.
IV. AGAINST VERRE8. 311
return of their acres, as to what they were sown with. And
this had not only great power in causing most iniquitous
claims to be submitted to, as we shall show hereafter, and
that too without any advantage to the republic, but at the
same time it gave a great handle to false accusations, which
all men were liable to if Apronius chose. For, as any one
said anything contrary to his inclination, immediately he was
summoned before the court on some charge relative to the
returns made of his lands. Through fear of which action
a great quantity of corn was extorted from many, and vast
sums were collected ; not that it was really difficult to make
a correct return of a man's acres, or even to make an ex
travagantly liberal one, (for what danger could there be in
doing that?) but still it opened a pretext for demanding
a trial because the cultivator had not made his return in the
terms of the edict. And you must feel sure what sort of
trial that would be while that man was praetor, if you recol
lect what sort of a train and retinue he had about him.
What is it, then, which I wish you to understand, O judges,
from the iniquity of these new edicts ? That any injury has
been done to our allies 1 That you see. That the authority
of his predecessors has been overruled by him 1 He will not
dare to deny it. That Apronius had such great influence
while he was praetor ? That he must unavoidably confess.
XVI. But perhaps you will inquire in this place, as the
law reminds you to do, whether he himself has made any
money by this conduct. I will show you that he has made
vast sums, and I will prove that he established all those
iniquitous rules which I have mentioned before, with no
object but his own profit, when I have first removed out
of his line of defence that rampart which he thinks he shall
be able to employ against all my attacks.
I sold, says he, the tenths at a high price. What are you
saying ? Did you, 0 most audacious and senseless of men,
sell the tenths ? Did you sell those portions which the
senate and people of Rome allowed you to sell, or the whole
produce ; and in that the whole property and fortunes of the
cultivators ? If the crier had openly given notice by your
order, that there was being sold, not a tenth, but half the
corn, and if purchasers had come with the idea of buying
half the corn, — if then you had sold the half for more than
312 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
the other prsetors had sold the tenth part of it, would that
seem strange to any one ? But what shall we say if the crier
gave notice of a sale of the tenths, but if, in fact, by your
regulation, — by your edict,— by the terms of the sale which
you offered, more than a half portion was sold 1 Will you
still think that creditable to yourself, to have sold what you
had no right to sell for more than others sold what they
fairly could? Oh, I sold the tenths for more than others
had sold them. By what means did you manage that ? by
innocent means ? Look at the temple of Castor, and then, if
you dare, talk of your innocent means. By your diligence 1
Look at the erasures in your registers at the name of
Sthenius of Thermae, and then have the face to call yourself
diligent. By your ability 1 You who refused at the former
pleadings to put questions to the witnesses, and preferred
presenting yourself dumb before them, pray call yourself and
your advocates able men as much as you please. By what
means, then, did you manage what you say you did ? For it
is a great credit to you if you have surpassed your predeces
sors in ability, and left to your successors your example and
your authority. Perhaps you had no one before you fit to
imitate. But, no doubt, all men will imitate you, the
inventor and first parent of such excellent methods. What
cultivator of the soil, when you were praetor, paid a tenth?
Who paid two-tenths only ] Who was there who did not
think himself treated with the greatest lenity if he paid three-
tenths instead of one, except a few men, who, on account of a
partnership with you in your robberies, paid nothing at all ]
See how great a difference there is between your harshness
and the kindness of the senate. The senate, when owing
to any necessity of the republic it is compelled to decree that
va second tenth shall be exacted, decrees that for that second
tenth money be paid to the cultivators, so that the quantity
which is taken beyond what is strictly due may be considered
to be purchased, not to be taken away. You, when you were
exacting and seizing so many tenths, not by a decree of the
senate, but by your own edicts and nefarious regulations,
shall you think that you have done a great deed if you
sell them for more than Lucius Hortensius, the father of this
Quintus Hortensius, did, — than Cnseus Pompeius or Gains
Marcellus sold them for; men who did not violate justice,
IV. AGAIXST VERRES. 313
or law, or established rules? Were you to consider what
might be got in one year, or in two years, and to neglect the
safety of the province, the well-doing of the corn interest, and
the interests of the republic in future times, though you
came to the administration of affairs when matters were
so managed that sufficient corn was supplied to the Roman
people from Sicily, and still it was a profitable thing for the
cultivators to plough and till their land? What have you
brought about ? What have you gained 1 In order that,
while you were praetor, some addition might be made to the
revenue derived from the tenths, you have caused the allot
ments of land to be deserted and abandoned. Lucius Metel-
1ns succeeded you. Were you more innocent than Metellus ?
Were you more desirous of credit and honour ? For you
were seeking the consulship, but Metellus neglected the
renown which he had inherited from his father and his
grandfather. He sold the tenths for much less, not only
than you had done, but even than those had who had sold
them before you..
XVII. I ask, if he himself could not contrive any means for
selling them at the best possible price, could he not follow in
the fresh steps of you the very last prsetor, so as to use your
admirable edicts and regulations, invented and devised by you
their author ] But he thought that he should not at all be a
Metellus if he imitated you in anything ; he who when he
thought that he was to go to that province sent letters to the
cities of Sicily from Rome, a thing which no one in the
memory of man ever did before, in which he exhorts and
entreats the Sicilians to plough and sow their land for the
service of the Roman people. He begs this some time before
his arrival, and at the same time declares that he will sell
the tenths according to the law of Hiero ; that is to say, that
in the whole business of the tenths he will do nothing like
that man. And he writes this, not from being impelled by
any covetousness to send letters into the province before his
time, but out of prudence, lest, if the seed-time passed, we
should have not a single grain of corn in the province of
Sicily. See Metellus's letters. Read the letter of Lucius
Metellus.
[The letters of Lucius Metellus are read.~\
XVIII. It is these letters, 0 judges, of Lucius Metellus,
314 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
•which you have heard, that have raised all the corn that there
is this year in Sicily. No one would have broken one clod of
earth in all the land of Sicily subject to the payment of
tenths, if Metellus had not sent this letter. What 1 Did this
idea occur to Metellus by inspiration, or had he his informa
tion from the Sicilians who had come to Rome in great
numbers, and from the traders of Sicily 1 And who is igno
rant what great crowds of them assembled at the door of the
Marcelli, the most ancient patrons of Sicily 1 what crowds of
them thronged to Cneeus Pompeius, the consul elect, and to
the rest of the men connected with the province ? And such
a thing never yet took place in the instance of any one, as for
a man to be openly accused by those people over whose pro
perty and families he had supreme dominion and power. So
great was the effect of his injuries, that men preferred to suffer
anything, rather than not to bewail themselves and complain
of his wickedness and injuries. And when Metellus had sent
these letters couched in almost a supplicating tone to all the
cities, still he was far from prevailing with them to sow the
land as they formerly had. For many had fled, as I ehall
presently show, and had left not only their allotments of land,
but even their paternal homes, being driven away by the in
juries of that man.
I will not indeed, 0 judges, say anything for the sake of
unduly exaggerating my charges. But the sentiments which
I have imbibed through my eyes and in my mind, those I
will state to you truly, and, as far as I can, plainly. For when
four years afterwards I came into Sicily, it appeared to me in
such a condition as those countries are apt to be in, in which
a bitter and long war has been carried on. Those plains and
fields which I had formerly seen beautiful and verdant, I now
saw so laid waste and desolate that the very land itself seemed
to feel the want of its cultivators, and to be mourning for its
master. The land of Herbita, of Enna, of Morgantia, of
Assoria, of Imachara, and of Agyrium, was so deserted as to
its principal part, that we had to look not only for the allot
ments of land, but also for the body of owners. But the
district of JEtua, which used to be most highly cultivated,
and that which was the very head of the corn country, the
district of Leontini, the character of which was formerly such
that when you had once seen that sown, you did not fear any
IV. AGAINST VBERBS. 315
clearness of provisions, was so rough and unsightly, that in
the most fruitful part of Sicily we were asking where Sicily
could be gone? The previous year had, indeed, greatly
shaken the cultivators, but the last one had utterly ruined
them.
XIX. Will you dare also to make mention to me of the
tenths? Do you, after such \vickedness, after such cruelty,
after such numerous and serious injuries done to people,
when the whole province of Sicily entirely depends on its
arable land, and on its rights connected with that land ; after
the cultivators have been entirely ruined, the fields deserted —
after you have left no one in so wealthy and populous a pro
vince — not only no property, but no hope even remaining ; do
you, I say, think that you can acquire any popularity by
saying that you have sold the tenths at a better price than
the other praetors ? As if the Roman people had formed this
wish, or the senate had given you this commission, by seizing
all the fortunes of the cultivators under the name of tenths,
to deprive the Roman people for all future time of that
revenue, and of their supply of corn ; and, as if after that, by
adding some part of your own plunder to the total amount
got from the tenths, you could appear to have deserved well
of the Roman people.
And I say this, as if his injustice was to be reproved in
this particular, that, out of a desire for credit to be got by
surpassing others in the sum derived from tenths, he had put
forth a law rather too severe, and edicts rather too stringent,
and rejected the examples of all his predecessors. You sold
the tenths at a high price. What will be said, if I prove that
you appropriated and took to your own house no less a sum
than you had sent to Rome under the name of tenths ? What
is there to obtain popularity for yon in that plan of yours,
when you took for yourself from a province of the Roman
people a share equal to that which you sent to the Roman
people ? What will be said if I prove that you took twice as
much corn yourself as you sent to the Roman people 1 Shall
we still expect to see your advocate toss his head at this accu
sation, and throw himself on the people, and on the assembly
here present 1 These things you have heard before, 0 judges;
but perhaps you have heard it on no other authority than
report, and the common conversation of men. Know now
316 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
that an enormous sum was taken by him on pretences con
nected with corn ; and consider at the same time the profli
gacy of that saying of his, when he said that by the profit
made on the tenths alone, he could buy himself off from all
his dangers.
XX. We have heard this for a long time, 0 judges. I say
that there is not one of you who has not often heard that the
collectors of the tenths were that man's partners. I do not
think that anything else has been said against him falsely by
those who think ill of him but this. For they are to be con
sidered partners of a man, with whom the gains of a business
are shared. But I say that the whole of these gains, and the
whole of the fortunes of the cultivators, went to Verres alone.
I say that Apronius, and those slaves of Venus, who were
quite a new class of farmers first heard of in his preetorship.
and the other collectors, were only agents of that one man's
gains, and ministers of his plunder. How do you prove that?
How did I prove that he had committed robbery in the con
tract for those pillars ? Chiefly, I think, by this fact, that he
had put forth an unjust and unprecedented law. For who
ever attempted to change all the rights of people, and the
customs of all men, getting great blame for. so doing, except
for some gain ? I will proceed and carry this matter further.
You sold the tenths according to an unjust law, in order to
sell them for more money. Why, when the tenths were now
knocked down and sold, — when nothing could now be added to
their sum total, but much might be to your own gains, — why
did new edicts appear, made on a sudden and to meet an
emergency ? For I say, that in your third year you issued
edicts, that a collector might summon a man before the court
anywhere he liked ; that the cultivator might not remove his
corn from the threshing-floor, before he had settled the claims
of the collector ; that they should have the tenths delivered
at the water-side before the first of August. All these edicts,
I say, you issued after the tenths had been sold. But if you
had issued them for the sake of the republic, notice would
have been given of them at the time of selling ; because you
wero acting with a view to your own interest, you, being
prompted by your love of gain and by the emergency, repaired
the omission which had unintentionally occurred. But who
can be induced to believe this — that you, without any profit.
IV. AGAINST VEEEES. 317
or even without the greatest profit to yourself, disregarded the
great disgrace, the great danger to your position as a free
man, and to your fortunes, which you were incurring, so far
as, though you were daily hearing the groans and complaints
of all Sicily, — though, as you yourself have said, you expected
to be brought to trial for this, — though the hazard of this
present trial is not at all inconsistent with the opinion you
yourself had formed, — still to allow the cultivators of the soil
to be harassed and plundered with circumstances of the most
scandalous injustice ? In truth, though you are a man of
singular cruelty and audacity, still you would be unwilling
for a whole province to be alienated from you, — for so many
most honourable men to be made your greatest enemies, if
your desire for money and present booty had not overcome
all reason and all consideration of safety. But, 0 judges,
since it is not possible for me to detail to you the sum total
and the whole number of his acts of injustice, — since it would
be an endless task to speak separately of the injuries done to
each individual, — I beg you, listen to the different kinds of
injustice.
XXI. There is a man of Centuripa, named Nympho, a
clever and industrious man, a most experienced and diligent
cultivator. He, though he rented very large allotments, (as
other rich men like him have been in the habit of doing in
Sicily,) and though he cultivated them at great expense,
keeping a great deal of stock, was treated by that man with
such excessive injustice, that he not only abandoned his allot
ments, but even fled from Sicily, and came to Rome with many
others who had been driven away by that man. He then con
trived that the collector should assert that Nympho had not
made a proper return of his number of acres, according to
that notable edict, which had no other object except making
profit of this sort. As Nympho wished to defend himself in
a regular action, he appoints some excellent judges, that same
physician Cornelius, (his real name is Artemidorus, a citizen
of Perga, under which name he had formerly in his own
country acted as guide to Verres, and as prompter in his ex
ploit of plundering the temple of Diana,) and Volusius the
soothsayer, and Valerius the crier. Nympho was condemned
before he had fairly got into court. In what penalty? perhaps
you will ask, for there was no fixed sum mentioned in the
318 CICERO 8 ORATIONS.
edict. In the penalty of all the corn which was on his thresh
ing-floors. So Apronius the collector takes, by a penalty for
violating au edict, and not by any rights connected with his
farming the revenue — not the tenth that was due, not corn
that had been removed and concealed, but seven thousand
medimni of wheat — from the allotments of Nympho.
XXII. A farm belonging to the wife of Xeno Menenius, a
most noble man, had been let to a settler. The settler,
because he could not bear the oppressive conduct of the col
lectors, had fled from his land. Verres gave his favourite
sentence of condemnation against Xeno for not having made
a return of his acres. Xeno said that it was no business of
his ; that the farm was let. Verres ordered a trial to take
place according to this formula, — " If it should a/ppear " that
there were more acres in the farm than the settler had re
turned, then Xeno was to be condemned. He said not only
that he had not been the cultivator of the land, which was
quite sufficient, but also that he was neither the owner of that
farm, nor the lessor of it ; that it belonged to his wife ; that
she herself transacted her own affairs ; that she had let the
land. A man of the very highest reputation, and of the
greatest authority, defended Xeno, Marcus Cossetius. Never
theless Verres ordered a trial, in which the penalty was fixed
at eighty thousand sesterces. Xeno, although he saw that
judges were provided for him out of that band of robbers,
still said that he would stand the trial. Then that fellow,
with a loud voice, so that Xeno might hear it, orders his
slaves of Venus to take care the man does not escape while
the trial is proceeding, and as soon as it is over to bring him
before him. And at the same time he said also, that he did
not think that, if from his riches he disregarded the penalty
of a conviction, he would also disregard the scourge. He,
under the compulsion of this violence and this fear, paid the
collectors all that Verres commanded.
XXIII. There is a citizen of Murgentia, named Polemar-
chus, a virtuous and honourable man. He, when seven
hundred medimni were demanded as the tenths due on fifty
acres, because he refused to pay them, was summoned before
the prsetor at his own house ; and, as he was still in bed, he
was introduced into his bed-chamber, into which no one else
was admitted, except his woman and the collector. There he
IV. AGAINST VERRE8. 319
was beaten and kicked about till, though he had refused before
to pay seven hundred medimni, he now promised a thousand.
Eubulides Grosphus is a man of Centuripa, a man above all
others of his city, both for virtue and high birth, and also for
wealth. They left this man, 0 judges, the most honourable
man of a most honourable city, not merely only so much
corn, but only so much life as pleased Apronius. For by
force, by violence, and by blows, he was induced to give corn,
not as much as he had, but as much as was demanded of him,
which was even more. Sostratus, and Numenius, and
Nymphodorus, of the same city, three brothers of kindred
sentiments, when they had fled from their lands because more
corn was demanded of them than their lands had produced,
were treated thus, — Apronius collected a band of men, came
into their allotments, took away all their tools, carried off
their slaves, and drove off their live stock. Afterwards, when
Nymphodorus came to ^Etna to him, and begged to have his
property restored to him, he ordered the man to be seized arid
hung up on a wild olive, a tree which is the forum there ;
and an ally and friend of the Roman people, a settler and
cultivator of your domain, hung suspended from a tree in a
city of our allies, and in the very forum, for as long a period
as Apronius chose.
I have now been recounting to you, 0 judges, the species
of countless injuries which he has wrought, — one of each sort.
An infinite host of evil actions I pass over. Place before your
own eyes, keep in your minds, these invasions by collectors of
the whole of Sicily, their plunderings of the cultivators of the
soil, the harshness of this man, the absolute reigu of Apronius.
He despised the Sicilians ; he did not consider them as men,
he thought that they would not be vigorous in avenging
themselves, and that you would treat their oppression lightly.
XXIV. Be it so. He adopted a false opinion about them,
and a very injurious one about you. But while he deserved
so ill of the Sicilians, at least, I suppose, he was attentive
to the Roman citizens ; he favoured them ; he was wholly
devoted to securing their good-will and favour ? He attentive
to the Roman citizens 1 There were no men to whom he was
more severe or more hostile. I say nothing of chains, of im
prisonment, of scourgings, of executions. I say nothing even
of that cross which he wished to be a witness to the Roman
320 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
citizens of his humanity and benevolence to them. I say
nothing, I say, of all this, and I put all this off to another
opportunity. I am speaking about the tenths, — about
the condition of the Roman citizens in their allotments ; and
how they were treated you heard from themselves. They
have told you that their property was taken from them.
But since there was such a cause for it as there was, these
things are to be endured, — I mean, the absence of all influence
in justice, of all influence in established customs. There
are, in short, no evils, 0 judges, of such magnitude that brave
men, of great and free spirit, think them intolerable. What
shall we say if, while that man was prsetor, violent hands
were, without any hesitation, laid by Apronius on Roman
knights, who were not obscure, nor unknown, but honourable,
and even illustrious ? What more do you expect ? What
more do you think I can say 1 Must I pass as quickly as
possible from that man and from his actions, in order to
come to Apronius, as, when I was in Sicily, I promised him
that I would do 1 — who detained for two days in the public
place at Leontini, Caius Matrinius, a man, 0 judges, of the
greatest virtue, the greatest industry, the highest popularity.
Know, 0 judges, that a Roman knight was kept two days
without food, without a roof over his head, by a man born in
disgrace, trained in infamy, practised in accommodating him
self to all Verres's vices and lusts ; that he was kept and
detained by the guards of Apronius two days in the forum at
Leontini, and not released till he had agreed to submit to his
terms.
XXV. For why, 0 judges, should I speak of Quintus Lol-
lius, a Roman knight of tried probity and honour? (the
matter which I am going to mention is clear, notorious, and
undoubted throughout all Sicily ;) — who, as he was a cultivator
of the domain in the district of ./Etna, and as his farm be
longed to Apronius's district as well as the rest, relying on
the ancient authority and influence of the equestrian order,
declared that he would not pay the collectors more than was
due from him to them. His words are reported to Apronius.
He laughed, and marvelled that Lollius had heard nothing of
Matrinius or of his other actions. He sends his slaves of Venus
to the man. Remark this also, that a collector had officers
appointed to attend him by the prsetor ; and see if this is a
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 321
slight argument that he abused the name of the collectors to
purposes of his own gain. Lollius is brought before Apronius
by the slaves of Venus, and dragged along, at a convenient
moment, when Apronius had just returned from the palsestra,
and was lying on a couch which he had spread in the forum
of ^Etna. Lollius is placed in the middle of that seemly ban
quet of gladiators. I would not, in truth, 0 judges, believe
the things which I am now saying, although I heard them
commonly talked about, if the old man had not himseli
told them to me in the most solemn manner, when he was
with tears expressing his thanks to me and to the willingness
with which I had undertaken this accusation. A Roman
knight, I say, nearly ninety years old, is placed in the middle
of Apronius's banquet, while Apronius in the meantime was
rubbing his head and face with ointment. " What is this,
Lollius," says he ; " cannot you behave properly, unless you
are compelled by severe measures ? " What was the man to
do ? should he hold his tongue, or answer him ? In truth he,
a man of that bright character, and that age, did not know
what to do. Meantime Apronius called for supper and wine ;
and his slaves, who were of no better manners than their
master, and were born of the same class and in the same rank
of life, brought these things before the eyes of Lollius. The
guests began to laugh, Apronius himself roared ; unless, per
chance, you suppose that he did not laugh in the midst of
wine and feasting, who even now at the time of his danger
and ruin cannot suppress his laughter. Not to detain you
too long • know, 0 judges, that Quintus Lollius, under the
compulsion of these insults, came into the terms and con
ditions of Apronius. Lollius, enfeebled by old age and dis
ease, could not come to give his evidence. What need have
we of Lollius ? There is no one who is ignorant of this, no
one of your own friends, no one who is brought forward by
you, no one at all who, if he is asked, will say that he now
hears this for the first time. Marcus Lollius, his son, a most
excellent young man, is present ; you shall hear what he says
— For Quintus Lollius, his son, who was the accuser of Cali-
dius, a young man both virtuous and bold, and of the highest
reputation for eloquence, when being excited by these injuries
and insults he had set out for Sicily, was murdered on the
way • and the crime of his death is imputed indeed to fugitive
Y
322 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
slaves j but, in reality, no one in Sicily doubts that he must
be murdered because he could not keep to himself his inten
tions respecting Verres. He, in truth, had no doubt that the
man who, under the promptings of a mere love of justice, had
already accused another, would be ready as an accuser for
him on his arrival, when he was stimulated by the injuries of
his father, and indignation at the treatment received by his
XXVI. Do you now thoroughly understand, 0 judges,
what a pest, what a barbarian has been let loose in your most
ancient, most loyal, and nearest province 1 Do you see now
on what account Sicily, which has before this endured the
thefts, and rapine, and iniquities, and insults of so many men,
has not been able to submit to this unprecedented, and extra
ordinary, and incredible series of injuries and insults 1 All
men are now aware why the whole province sought out that
man as a defender of its safety, from the effects of whose good
faith, and diligence, and perseverance Verres could not pos
sibly be saved. You have been present at many trials, you
know that many guilty and wicked men have been impeached
within your own recollection, and that of your ancestors.
Have you ever seen any one, have you ever heard of any
one, who has lived in the practice of such great, such open
robberies, of such audacity, of such shameless impudence ?
Apronius had his attendants of Venus about him ; he took
them with him about the different cities ; he ordered ban
quets to be prepared and couches to be spread for him at the
public expense, and to be spread for him in the forum.
Thither he ordered most honourable men to be summoned,
not only Sicilians, but even Roman knights, so that men of
the most thoroughly proved honour were detained at his
banquet, when none but the most impure and profligate men
would join him in a banquet. Would you, 0 most profligate
and abandoned of all mortals, when you knew these things,
when you were hearing of them every day, when you were
.seeing them, would you ever have allowed or endured that such
things should have taken place, to your own great danger, if
they had taken place without enormous profit to yourself ? Was
it the profit made by Apronius, and his most beastly conversa
tion, and his flagitious caresses, that had such influence with you,
that no care for or thought of your own fortunes ever touched
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 323
your mind 1 You see, 0 judges, what sort of conflagration, and
how vast a torrent of collectors spread itself with violence,
not only over the fields but also over all the other property
of the cultivators ; not only over the property, but also over
the rights of liberty and of the state. You see some men sus
pended from trees ; others beaten and scourged ; others kept
as prisoners in the public place ; others left standing alone at
a feast ; others condemned by the physician and crier of the
praetor ; and nevertheless the property of all of them is carried
off from the fields and plundered at the same time. What is
all this 1 Is this the rule of the Roman people ? Are these the
laws of the Roman people ? are these their tribunals ? are
these their faithful allies 1 is this their suburban province ?
Are not rather all these things such that even Athenio
would not have done them if he had been victorious in
Sicily ? I say, 0 judges, that the evidence of fugitive slaves
would not have equalled one quarter of the wickedness of
that man.
XXVII. In this manner did he behave to individuals.
What more shall I say? How were cities treated in their
public capacity ? You have heard many statements and tes
timonies from some cities, and you shall hear them from the
rest. And first of all, listen to a brief tale concerning the
people of Agyrium, a loyal and illustrious people. The state
of Agyrium is among the first in all Sicily for honour ; — a
state of men wealthy before this man came as praetor, and of
excellent cultivators of the soil. When this same Apronius had
purchased the tenths of that district, he came to Agyrium ;
and when he had come thither with his regular attendants —
that is to say, with threats and violence, — he began to ask an
immense sum, so that when he had got his profit, he might
depart. He said that he did not wish to have any trouble,
but that, when he had got his money, he would depart as soon
as possible to some other city. All the Sicilians are not con
temptible men, if only our magistrates leave them alone ; but
they are many, of sufficient courage, and very economical and
temperate, and among the very first is this city of which I
am now speaking, 0 judges. Therefore the men of Agyrium
make answer to this most worthless man, that they will give
him the tenths which are due from them, that they will not
add to them any profit for himself, especially since he had
T2
324 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
bought them an excellent bargain. Apronius informs Verres,
whose business it really was, what was going on.
XXVIII. Immediately, as if there had been some conspi
racy at Agyrium formed against the republic, or as if the
lieutenant of the praetor had been assaulted, the magistrates
and five principal citizens are summoned from Agyrium at his
command. They went to Syracuse. Apronius is there. He says
that those very men who had come had acted contrary to the
praetor's edict. They asked, in what? He answered, that he
would say in what before the judges. He, that most just
man, tried to strike his old terror into the wretched Agyrians ;
he threatened that he would appoint their judges out of his
own retinue. The Agyrians, being very intrepid men, said
that they would stand the trial. That fellow put on the
tribunal Artemidorus Cornelius, the physician, Valerius, the
crier, Tlepolemus, the painter, and judges of that sort; not
one of whom was a Roman citizen, but Greek robbers of
temples, long since infamous, and now all Corneliuses. The
Agyrians saw that whatever charge Apronius brought before
those judges, he would very easily prove; but they preferred
to be convicted, and so add to his unpopularity and infamy,
rather than accede to his conditions and terms. They asked
what formula would be given to the judges on which to try
them1? He answered, " If it appeared that they had acted con
trary to the edict," on which formula he said that he should
pronounce judgment. They preferred trying the question
according to a most unjust formula, and with most profligate
judges, rather than come to any settlement with him of their
own accord. He sent Timarchides privily to them, to warn
them, if they were wise, to settle the matter. They refused.
" What, then, will you do? Do you prefer to be convicted
each of you in a penalty of fifty thousand sesterces? " They
said they did. Then he said out loud, in the hearing of every
one, " Whoever is condemned, shall be beaten to death with
rods." On this they began with tears to beg and entreat him
to be allowed to give up their cornfields, and all their pro
duce, and their allotments, when stripped of everything, to
Apronius, and to depart themselves without insult and annoy
ance. These were the terms, 0 judges, on which Verres sold
the tenths. Hortensius may say, if he pleases, that Verres
sold them at a high price.
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 325
XXIX. This was the condition of the cultivators of the
soil while that man was praetor; that they thought them
selves exceedingly well off, if they might give up their fields
when stripped of everything to Apronius, for they wished to
escape the many crosses which were set before their eyes.
Whatever Apronius had declared to be due, that they were
forced to give, according to the edict. Suppose he declared
more was due than the land produced? Just so. How could
that be ? The magistrates were bound, according to his own
edict, to compel the payment. Well, but the cultivators
could recover. Yes, but Artemidorus was the judge. What
next 1 What happened if the cultivator had given less than
Apronius had demanded ? A prosecution of the cultivator to
recover a fourfold penalty. Before judges taken from what
body ? From that admirable retinue of most honourable
men in attendance on the prsetor. What more ? I say that
you returned less than the proper number of acres: select
judges for the matter which is to be tried, namely, your
violation of the edict. Out of what class ? Out of the same
retinue. What will be the end of it ? If you are convicted,
(and what doubt can there be about a conviction with those
judges 1) you must be beaten to death with rods. When these
are the rules, these the conditions, will there be any one so
foolish as to think that what was sold were the tenths? Who
believes that nine parts were left to the cultivator? Who
does not perceive that that fellow considered as his own gain
and plunder the property and possessions and fortunes of the
cultivators ? From fear of the rods the Agyrians said that
they would do what they were commanded to.
XXX. Listen now to what his orders were ; and conceal, if
you can, that you are aware of what all Sicily well knew, that
the prsetor himself was the farmer of the tenths, or rather the
lord and sovereign of all the allotments in the province. He
orders the Agyrians to take the tenths themselves in the
name of their city, and to give a compliment to Apronius.
If he had bought them at a high price, since you are a man
who inquired into the proper price with great diligence, who,
as you say, sold them at a high price, why do you think that
a compliment ought to be added as a present to the pur
chaser ? Be it so ; you did think so. Why did you order
them to add it ? What is the meaning of taking and appro-
326 CICERO'S OBATIONS.
priating money, for which the law has a hold on you, if this
is not it, — I mean the compelling men by force and despotic
power against their will to give a compliment to another,
that is to say, to give him money ? Well, what comes next ?
If they were ordered to give some small compliment to-
Apronius, the delight of the praetor's life, suppose that it was
given to Apronius, if it seems to you the compliment to
Apronius, and not the plunder of the praetor. You order
them to take the tenths; to give Apronius a compliment, —
thirty-three thousand medimni of wheat. What is this? One
city is compelled by the command of the praetor to give to
the Roman people out of one district almost food enough to
support it for a month. Did you sell the tenths at a high
price, when such a compliment was given to the collector?
In truth, if you had inqiiired carefully into the proper price,
then when you were selling them, they would rather have
given ten thousand medimni more then, than six hundred
thousand sesterces afterwards. It seems a great booty. Listen
to what follows, and remark it carefully, so as to be the less
surprised that the Sicilians, being compelled by their neces
sity, entreated aid from their patrons, from the consuls, from
the senate, from the laws, from the tribunals. To pay Apro
nius for testing the wheat which was given to him, Verres
orders the Agyrians to pay Apronius three sesterces for every
medimnus.
XXXI. What is this ? When such a quantity of corn has
been extorted and exacted under the name of a compliment, is
money to be exacted besides for testing the corn 1 Or could,
not only Apronius, but any one, if corn was to be served out
to the army, disapprove of the Sicilian corn, which Verres
might have measured on the threshing-floor, if he had liked 1
That vast quantity of corn is given and extorted at your
command. That is not enough. Money is demanded besides.
It is paid. That is too little. For the tenths of barley more
money is extorted. You order thirty thousand sesterces to be
paid. And so from one city there are extorted by force, by
threats, by the despotic power and injustice of the praetor,
thirty-three thousand medimni of wheat, and besides that,
sixty thousand sesterces ! Are these things obscure ? Or,
even if all the world wished it, can those things be obssure
which you did openly, which you ordered in open court, which
IV. AGAINST VEKEES. 327
you extorted when every one was looking on ? concerning
which matters the magistrates and five chief men of Agyrium,
whom you summoned from their homes for the sake of your
own gain, reported your acts and commands to their own
senate at home ; and that report, according to their laws, wa?
recorded in the public registers, and the ambassadors of the
Agyrians, most noble men, are at Rome, and have deposed to
these facts in evidence. Examine the public letters of the
Agyrians ; after that the public testimony of the city. Bead
the public letters.
[The public letters are read.']
Read the public evidence.
[The public evidence is read.]
You have remarked in this evidence, 0 judges, that Apol-
lodorus, whose surname is Pyragrus, the chief man of his city,
gave his evidence with tears, and said that since the name of
the Roman people had been heard by and known to the Sici
lians, the Agyrians had never either said or done anything
contraiy to the interests of even the meanest of the Roman
citizens ; but that now they are compelled by great injuries
and great suffering to give evidence in a public manner
against a prsetor of the Roman people. You cannot, in truth,
O Verres, invalidate the evidence of this one city by your
defence ; so great a weight is there in the fidelity of these
men, such great indignation is there at their injuries, such
great conscientiousness is there in the way in which they gave
their evidence. But it is not one city alone, but eveiy city,
that now being crushed by similar distresses pursues you
•with deputations and public evidence.
XXXII. Let us now, in regular order, proceed to see in
what way the city of Herbita, an honourable and formerly a
wealthy city, was harassed and plundered by him. A city of
•what sort of men ? Of excellent agriculturists, men most
remote from courts of law, from tribunals, and from disputes ;
whom you, 0 most profligate of men, ought to have spared,
whose interests you ought to have consulted, the whole race
of whom you ought most carefully to have preserved. In the
first year of your prsetorship the tenths of that district were
sold for eighteen thousand1 medimni of wheat. When Atidius,
1 Orellius considers that all the figures and measures in this and the
next chapter are in a state of hopeless corruption and confusion ; and
they are certainly not very easily reconciled with each other. The effect
328 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
who was also his servant in the matter of tenths, had purchased
them, and when he had come to Herbita with the title of
prsefect, attended by the slaves of Verres, and when a place
where he might lodge had been assigned him by the public
act of the city, the people of Herbita are compelled to give
him as a profit thirty-seven thousand modii of wheat, when
the tenths of the wheat had been sold at eighteen thousand.
And they are compelled to give this vast quantity of wheat in
the name of their city, since the private cultivators of the
soil had already fled from their lands, having been plundered
and driven away by the injuries of the collectors. In the
second year, when Apronius had bought the tenths of wheat
for twenty-five thousand modii, and when he himself had
come to Herbita with his whole force and his whole band of
robbers, the people was compelled to give him in the name of
the city a present of twenty-six thousand modii of wheat, and
a further gift of two thousand sesterces. I am not quite sure
about this further gift, whether it was not given to Apronius
himself as wages for his trouble, and a reward for his impu
dence. But concerning such an immense quantity of wheat,
who can doubt that it came to that robber of corn, Verres,
just as the corn of Agyrium did ? But in the third year he
adopted in this district the custom of sovereigns.
XXXIII. They say that the barbarian kings of the Persians
and Syrians are accustomed to have several wives, and to give
to these wives cities in this fashion : — that this city is to dress
the woman's waist, that one to dress her neck, that to dress
her hair ; and so they have whole nations not only privy
to their lusts, but also assistants in it. Learn that the
licentiousness and lust of that man who thought himself king
of the Sicilians, was much the same. The name of the wife
of J^schrio, a Syracusan, is Pippa, whose name has been
made notorious over all Sicily by that man's profligacy, and
many verses were inscribed on the praetor's tribunal, and over
the praetor's head, about that woman. This ^Eschrio, the
imaginary husband of Pippa, is appointed as a new farmer of
the tenths of Herbita. When the men of Herbita saw that if
the business got into ^Eschrio's hands they should be plun-
of the oration in general is not weakened, but we must not suppose that
we have the exact statements which were addressed by Cicero to tha
judges.
IV. AGAINST VEEEES. 329
tiered at the will of a most dissolute woman, they bid against
him as far as they thought that they could go. ^Eschrio bid
on, for he was not afraid that, while Verres was praetor,
the woman, who would be really the farmer, would ever
be allowed to lose by it. The tenths are knocked down
to him at thirty-five thousand medimni, nearly half as much
again as they had fetched the preceding year. The culti
vators were utterly destroyed, and so much the more because
in the preceding year they had been drained dry, and almost
ruined. He was aware that they had been sold at so
high a price, that more could not be squeezed out of the
people ; so he deducts from the sum total three thousand six
hundred medimni, and enters on the registers thirty-one
thousand four hundred.
XXXIV. Docimus had bought the tenths of barley belong
ing to the same district. This Docimus is the man who had
brought to Verres Tertia, the daughter of Isidorus the actor,
having taken her from a Rhodian flute-player. The influence
of this woman Tertia was greater with him than that of
Pippa, or of all the other women, and I had almost said, was
as great in his Sicilian prrctorship as that of Chelidon had
been in his city prsetorship. There come to Herbita the two
rivals of the prsetor, not likely to be troublesome to him,
infamous agents of most abandoned women. They begin
to demand, to beg, to threaten ; but though they wished
it, they were not able to imitate Apronius. The Sicilians
were not so much afraid of Sicilians ; still, as they put forth
false accusations in every possible way, the Herbitenses under
take to appear in court at Syracuse. When they had arrived
there, they are compelled to give to ^Eschrio — that is, to
Pippa — as much as had been deducted from the original
purchase-money, three thousand six hundred modii of wheat.
He was not willing to give to the woman who was really the
farmer too much profits out of the tenths, lest in that case
she should transfer her attention from her nocturnal gains
to the farming of the tributes. The people of Herbita
thought the matter was settled, when that man added, — "And
what are you going to give out of the barley to my little
friend Docimus? What are your intentions'?" He transacted
all this business, 0 judges, in his chamber, and in his bed.
They said that they had no commission to give anything.
330 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
" T do not hear you ; pay him fifteen thousand sesterces."
What were the wretched men to do ? or how could they
refuse ? especially when they saw the traces of the woman
who was the collector fresh in the bed, by which they under
stood that he had been inflamed to persevere in his demand.
And so one city of our allies and friends was made tri
butary of two most debauched women while Verres was
prsctor. And I now assert that that quantity of corn and
those sums of money were given by the people of Herbita to
the collectors in the name of the city. And yet by all that
corn and all that money they could not deliver their fellow-
citizens from the injuries of the collectors. For after the
property of the cultivators was destroyed and carried off,
bribes were still to be given to the collectors to induce them
to depart at length from their lands and from their cities.
And so when Philinus of Herbita, a man eloquent and
prudent, and noble in his own city, spoke in public of the
distress of the cultivators, and of their flight, and of the
scanty numbers that were left behind, you remarked, 0 judges,
the groans of the Roman people, a great crowd of whom has
always been present at this cause. And concerning the
scanty number of the cultivators I will speak at another time.
XXXV. But at this moment a topic, which I had almost
passed over, must not be altogether forgotten. For, in the
name of the immortal gods ! how will you, I will not say
tolerate, but how will you bear even to hear of the sums
which Verres subtracted from the sum total ? Up to this
time there has been one man only since the first foundation
of Rome, (and may the immortal gods grant that there may
never be another,) to whom the republic wholly committed
herself, being compelled by the necessities of the times and
domestic misfortunes. He had such power, that without his
consent no one could preserve either his property, or his
liberty, or his life. He had such courage in his audacity,
that he was not afraid to say in the public assembly, when
he was selling the property of Roman citizens, that he was
selling his own booty. All his actions we not only still main
tain, but out of fear of greater inconveniences and calamities,
we defend them by the public authority. One decree alone
of his has been remodelled by a resolution of the senate, and
a decree has been passed, that these men, from the sum total
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 331
of whose debts he had made a deduction, should pay the
money into the treasury. The senate laid down this prin
ciple, — that even he to whom they had intrusted everything
had not power to diminish the total amount of revenue
acquired and procured by the valour of the Roman people.
The conscript fathers decided that he had no power to remit
even to the bravest men any portion of their debts to the
state. And shall the senators decide that you have lawfully
remitted any to a most profligate woman ? The man, con
cerning whom the Roman people had established a law that
his absolute will should be the law to the Roman people, still
is found fault with in this one particular, out of reverence for
their ancient laws. Did you, who were liable to almost every
law, think that your lust and caprice was to be a law to you ?
He is blamed for remitting a part of that money which he
himself had acquired. Shall you be pardoned who have
remitted part of the revenue due to the Roman people ?
XXXVI. And in this description of boldness he proceeded
even much more shamelessly with respect to the tenths of the
district of Segesta ; for when he had knocked them down to
this same Docimus, for five thousand modii of wheat, and had
added as an extra present fifteen thousand sesterces, he com
pelled the people of Segesta to take them of Docimus at the
same price in the name of their city ; and you shall have this
proved by the public testimony of the Segestans. Read the
public testimony.
[The public testimony is read.~\
You have heard at what price the city took the tenths from
Docimus, — at five thousand modii of wheat, and an extra gift.
Learn now at what price he entered them in his accounts as
having been sold.
[The law respecting the sale of tithes, Caius Verres being
the praetor, is read.~\
You see that in this item three thousand bushels of wheat are
deducted from the sum total, and when he had taken all this
from the food of the Roman people, from the sinews of the
revenue, from the blood of the treasury, he gave it to Tertia
the actress. Shall I call it rather an impudent action, to
extort from allies of the state, or an infamous one to give
it to a prostitute ? or a wicked one to take it away from the
Roman people, or an audacious one to make false entries in.
332 CICEEO'S ORATIONS.
the public accounts ? Can any influence or any bribery de
liver you from the severity of these judges ? And if it should
deliver you, do you not still see that the things which I am
mentioning belong to another count of the prosecution, and
to the action for peculation 1 Therefore I will reserve the
whole of that class of offences, and return to the charge
respecting the corn and the tenths which I had begun to
speak of.
While this man was laying waste the largest and most fertile
districts by his own agency, that is to say by Apronius, that
second Verres, he had others whom he could send, like hounds,
among the lesser cities, worthless and infamous men, to whom
he compelled the citizens to give either corn or money in the
name of their city.
XXXVII. There is a man called Aulus Valentius in Sicily,
an interpreter, whom Verres used to employ not only as an
interpreter of the Greek language, but also in his robberies
and other crimes. This interpreter, an insignificant and needy
man, becomes on a sudden a farmer of tenths. He purchases
the tenths of the territory of Lipara, a poor and barren dis
trict, for six hundred medimiii of wheat. The people of
Lipara are convoked : they are compelled to take the tenths,
and to pay Valentius thirty thousand sesterces as profit. 0
ye immortal gods ! which argument will you take for your
defence ; that you sold the tenths for so much less than you
might have done,— that the city immediately, of its own
accord, added to the six hundred medimni thirty thousand
sesterces as a compliment, that is to say, two thousand medirani
of wheat 1 or that, after you had sold the tenths at a high
price, you still extorted this money from the people of Lipara
against their will 1 But why do I ask of you what defence
you are going to employ, instead of rather asking the city
itself what you have done. Read the public testimony of the
Liparans, and after that read how the money was given to
Valentius.
\Tlie public testimony is read.]
\The statement how the money was paid, extracted out of the
public accounts, is read.]
Was even this little state, so far removed out of your reach
and out of your sight, separated from Sicily, placed on a barren
and uncultivated island, turned as a sort of crown to all your
IV. AGAINST VEKEES. 333
other iniquities, into a source of plunder and profit to you
in this matter of corn ] You had given the whole island to
one of your companions as a trifling present, and still were
these profits from corn exacted from it as from the inland
states ? And therefore the men who for so many years, before
you came as praetor, were in the habit of ransoming their
lands from the pirates, now had a price set on themselves, and
were compelled to ransom themselves from you.
XXXVIII. What more need I say 1 Was not more ex
torted, under the name of a compliment, from the people of
Tissa, a very small and poor city, but inhabited by very hard
working agriculturists and most frugal men, than the whole
crop of corn which they had extracted from their land ?
Among them you sent as farmer Diognotus, a slave of Venus.
a new class of collector altogether. Why, with such a pre
cedent as this, are not the public slaves at Rome also entrusted
with the revenues ? In the second year of your prsetorship
the Tissans are compelled against their will to give twenty-
one thousand sesterces as a compliment. In the third year
they were compelled to give thirty thousand medimni of
wheat to Diognotus, a slave of Venus, as a compliment ! This
Diognotus, who is making such vast profits out of the public
revenues, has no deputy, no peculium at all. Doubt now, if
you can, whether this Venereal officer of Verres received such
an immense quantity of corn for himself, or exacted it for his
master. And learu this also from the public testimony of
the Tissans.
\_The public testimony of the Tissans is read.]
Is it only obscurely, 0 judges, that the praetor himself is the
farmer, when his officers exact corn from the cities, levy money
on them, take something more as a compliment for them
selves than they are to pay over to the Roman people under
the name of tenths ? This was your idea of equity in your
command — this was your idea of the dignity of the prsetor,
to make the slaves of Venus the lords of the Sicilian people.
This was the line drawn, these were the distinctions of rank,
while you were the praetor, that the cultivators of the soil
were to be considered in the class of slaves, the slaves in the
light of farmers of the revenue.
XXXIX. What more shall I say 1 Were not the wretched
people of Amestratus, after such vast tenths had been imposed
334 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
upon them, that they had nothing left for themselves, still
compelled to pay money besides ? The tenths are knocked
down to Marcus Csesius in the presence of deputies from
Amestratus, and Heraclius, one of their deputies, is compelled
at once to pay twenty-two thousand sesterces. What is the
meaning of this 1 What is the meaning of this booty 1 of
this violence 1 of this plundering of the allies 1 If HeiTiclius
had been commissioned by his senate to purchase the tenths,
he would have purchased them ; if he was not, how could he
pay money of his own accord 1 He reports to his fellow-
citizens that he has paid Csesius this money. Learn his report
from his letters. Read extracts from the public letters.
[The public letters are read.]
By what decree of the senate was this permission given to
the deputy ? By none. Why did he do so 1 He was com
pelled. Who says this 1 The whole city. Read the public
testimony.
[The public testimony is read.]
By the same evidence you see that there was extorted from
the same city in the second year a sum of money in a similar
manner, and given to Sextus Vennonius. But you compel
the Amestratines, needy men, after you have sold their tenths
for eight hundred medimni to Banobalis, a slave of Venus,
(just notice the names of the farmers,) to add more still as a
compliment, than they had been sold for, though they had
been sold at a high price. They gave Banobalis eight hun
dred medimni of wheat, and fifteen hundred sesterces. Surely
that man would never have been so senseless, as to allow
more corn to be given out of the domain of the Roman people
to a slave of Venus than to the Roman people itself, unless all
that plunder had, under the name of the slave, come in reality
to himself. The people of Petra, though their ten-ths had
been sold at a high price, were, very much against their will,
compelled to give thirty-seven thousand sesterces to Publius
Nsevius Turpio, a most infamous man, who was convicted or
assault while Sacerdos was praetor. Did you sell the tenths so
carelessly, that, when a medimnus cost fifteen sesterces, and
when the tenths were sold for three thousand medimni, that
is, for forty-five thousand sesterces, still three thousand sester
ces could be given to the farmer as a compliment ? " Oh, but
I sold the tenths of that district at a high price," he boasts
IV. AGAINST VERRE8; 335
forsooth, not that a compliment was given to Turpio, but
that money was taken from the Petrans.
XL. What shall I say next 1 The Halicyans, the settlers
among whom pay tenths, themselves have their lands free
from taxes. Were not they also compelled to give to the
same Turpio fifteen thousand sesterces, when their tenths had
been sold for a hundred medimni 1 If, as you are especially
anxious to do, you could prove that these compliments all went
to the farmers, and that none of them reached you, still these
sums, taken and extorted as they were by your violence and
injustice, ought to ensxire your conviction; but, as you cannot
persuade any one that you were so foolish as to wish Apro-
nius and Turpio, two slaves, to become rich at your own risk
and thai; of your children, do you think that any one will
doubt that through the instrumentality of those emissaries
all this money was really procured for you 1 Again, Symma-
chus, a slave of Venus, is sent as farmer to Segesta, a city
exempt from such taxes ; he brings letters from Verres, to
order the cultivators to appear in a court of some other city
than their own, contrary to every resolution of the senate, to
all their rights and privileges, and to the Eupilian law. Hear
the letters which he sent to the Segestans.
[The letters of Caius Verres are read.]
Now learn by one bargain made with an honourable and
respected man, how this slave of Venus insulted the culti
vators of the soil ; for there are other instances of this sort.
There is a man of the name of Diocles, a citizen of Panormus,
surnamed Phimes, an illustrious man, and of high reputation
as an agriculturist ; he rented a farm in the Segestan district,
(for there are no traders in that place,) for six thousand ses
terces ; after having been assaulted by this slave of Venus, he
settled with him to give him sixteen thousand, six hundred,
and sixty-four sesterces. You may learn this from Verres's
own accounts.
[The items entered under the name of Diodes of Panormus are
read.]
Anneius Brocchus also, a senator, a man of a reputation, and
of a virtue with which you are all acquainted, was compelled
to give money also besides corn to this same Symmachus.
Was such a man, a senator of the Roman people, a subject of
profit to a slave of Venus, while you were prsetor ?
336 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
XLI. Even if you were not aware that this body excelled
all others in dignity, were you not at least aware of this,
that it furnished the judges ? Previously, when the equestrian
order furnished the judges, infamous and rapacious magis
trates in the provinces were subservient to the farmers ; they
honoured all who were in their employ ; every Roman knight
whom they saw in the province they pursued with attentions
and courtesies ; and that conduct was not so advantageous to
the guilty, as it was a hindrance to many if they had acted
in any respect contrary to the advantage or inclination of that
body. This sort of principle was somehow or other diligently
preserved among them as if by common consent, that who
ever had thought any Roman knight deserving of any affront,
was to be considered by their whole order as deserving of
every possible misfortune. Did you so despise the order of
senators, did you so reduce everything to the standard of
your own insults and caprices, had you so deliberated and
fixed it in your own mind as an invariable rule, to reject as
judges every one who dwelt in Sicily, or who had been in
Sicily while you were prsetor, that it never occurred to you
that still you must come before judges of the same order ?
in whose minds, even if there were no indignation from any
personal injury done to themselves, still there would be this
thought, that they were affronted in the affront offered to
another, and that the dignity of their order was contemp
tuously treated and trampled on, which, 0 judges, appears to
me not to be endured with patience, for insult has in it a
sting which modest and virtuous men can with difficulty put
up with. You have plundered the Sicilians, for indeed the
provincials are accustomed to obtain no revenge amid their
wrongs. You have harassed the brokers, for they seldom
come to Rome, and never of their own accord. You gave up
a Roman knight to the ill-treatment of Aprouius. To be
sure ; for what harm can they do you now, when they cannot
be judges ? What will you say when you treat senators also
with the greatest violence 1 what else can you say but this,
" Give me up that senator also, in order that the most honour
able name of senator may appear to exist not only to excite the
envy of the ignorant, but also to attract the insults of the
worthless." Nor did he do this in the case of Anneius
alone, but in the instance of every senator, so that the name
rIV. AGAINST VERRES. 337
•of that order had not so much influence in procuring honour
as insult for its members. In the case of Caius Cassius,
a most illustrious and most gallant man, though he was con
sul at that very time, in the first year of his preetorship, he
behaved with such injustice, that, as his wife, a woman of the
highest respectability, had lands in Leontini, inherited from
her father, he ordered all her crops to be taken away for
tenths. You shall have him as a witness in this cause,
0 Verres, since you have taken care not to have him as
a judge ; but you, 0 judges, ought to think that there is
some community of interests, some close connexion existing
between the members of our body ; many offices are imposed
on this our order, many toils, many dangers, not only from
the laws and courts of justice, but also from vague reports,
and from the critical character of the times; so that this
order is, as it were, exposed to view, and set on an eminence,
in order, as it seems, to be the more easily caught by every
blast of envy. In so miserable and unfair a condition of life,
shall we not retain even the honour of not appearing vile and
contemptible in the eyes of our own magistrates, when we
appear before them to obtain our rights 1
XLIL The men of Thermae sent agents to purchase the
tenths of their district. They thought it was much better
for them, that they should be purchased by their own state at
ever so high a price, than that they should get into the hands
of some emissary of his. A man of the name of Venuleius'
had been put up to buy them. He did not cease from bid
ding. They went on competing with him, as long as the
price appeared such as could by any possibility be borne. At
last they gave up bidding. They are knocked down to Venu
leius at eight thousand modii of wheat. Possidorus, the
deputy of Thermae, sends notice home. Although it appeared
to every one a most intolerable hardship, still there were given
to Venuleius eight thousand modii of wheat, and two thousand
sesterces besides, not to come near them. From which it is
very evident which part was the wages of the farmer, and
which the booty of the praetor. Give me the letters and testi
mony of the people of Thermae.
[The accounts of the people of Thermae, and their evidence,
are read.~\
You compelled the Imacharans after you had taken away all
338 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
their corn, after they had been impoverished by your incessant
injuries, miserable and ruined as they were, to pay tribute so
as to give Apronius twenty thousand sesterces. Read the
decree about the tributes, and the public testimony.
[The Resolution of the Senate about the tribute to be paid,
is read.
\The testimony of the Imacharans is read.]
The people of Enna, though the tenths of the territory of
Enna had been sold for three thousand two hundred medimni,
•were compelled to give Apronius eighteen thousand modii of
wheat, and three thousand sesterces. I entreat you to remark
what an enormous quantity of corn is extorted from every
district liable to the payment of tenths ; for my speech ex
tends over every city which is so liable. And I am at present
engaged about this class of injuries, 0 judges, in which it is
not a case of single cultivators being stripped of all their
property, but of compliments being exacted from the public
treasury of each city, for the farmers, in order that at last
they may depart from the lands and cities glutted and
satiated with this immense heap of gain.
XLIII. Why in the third year of your prsetorship did you
order the Calactans to carry the tenths of their land, which
they had been accustomed to pay at Calacta, to Marcus Csesius
the farmer of Amestratus, a thing which they had never done
before you were praetor, and which you yourself had never
ordered in the two years preceding ? Why was Theomnastus
the Syracusan sent by you into the district of Mutyca, where
he so harassed the cultivators, that for their second tenths
they were unavoidably forced to buy wheat, because they had
actually none of their own, (a thing which I shall prove hap
pened also in the case of other cities.) But now, from the
agreements made with the people of Hybla, which were made
with the farmer Cnseus Sergius, yOu will perceive that six
times as much corn as was sown was exacted of the cultiva
tors. Read the accounts of the sowings and the agreements,
extracted from the public registers. Read.
\The agreements of the people of Hybla with Cnoeus Sergius,
extracted out of the public registers, are read.]
Listen also to the returns of the sowings, and the agreements
of the men of Mena with that slave of Venus. Read them out
of the public registers.
IV. AGAINST VBRKES. 339
[The returns of the Sowings, and the agreements of the Menans
with the servant of Venus, extracted from the public regis
ters, are readJ\
Will you, 0 judges, endure that a great deal more than has
been produced should be exacted from our allies, from the
cultivators of the domain of the Roman people, from those
who are labouring for you, are in your service, who are so
eager that the Roman people should be fed by them, that
they only retain for themselves and their children enough for
their actual subsistence, and should be exacted too with the
greatest violence, and the most bitter insults ? I feel, 0
judges, that I must now set some bounds to the length of my
speech, and that I must avoid wearying you. I will no longer
dwell on one kind of injury alone, and I will leave the other
instances out of my speech, though they will still make a part
of my accusation. You shall hear the complaints of the
Agrigentines, most gallant, and most industrious men ; you
shall become acquainted, 0 judges, with the sufferings and the
injuries of the Entellans, a people of the greatest perseverance
and the greatest industry ; the wrongs of the men of Hera-
clea, and Gela, and Solentum shall be mentioned : you shall
be told of the fields of the Catanians, a most wealthy people
and most friendly to us, ravaged by Apronius : you shall be
made aware that the cities of Tyndaris, that most noble city,
of Cephalsedis, of Halentia, of Apollonia, of Enguina, of Capitia,
have been ruined by the iniquity of these farmers; that actually
nothing is left to the citizens of Ina, of Murgentia, of Assoria, of
Elorum, of Enna, and of letum ; that the people of Cetaria and
Acheria, small cities, are wholly crushed and destroyed ; in
short, that all the lands liable to the payment of tenths have
been for three years tributary to the Roman people, to the
extent of one tenth of their produce, and to Caius Verres to
the extent of all the rest ; that to most of the cultivators
nothing at all is left, that if anything was either remitted to
or left to any one, it was only just so much as remained of
that property by which the avarice of that man had been
satiated.
XLIV. I have reserved the territories of two cities, O
judges, to speak of last, the best and noblest of all, the ter
ritory of ^Etna and that of Leontini : I will say nothing of
the gains made out of these districts in his three years ; I
z2
340 CICERO'S OEATIONS.
will select one year in order that I more easily may be able
to explain what I have settled to mention. I will take the
third year, because it is both the most recent, and because it
has been managed by him in such a way that, since he knew
that he was certainly going to depart, he evidently did not
care if he left behind him not one cultivator of the soil in all
Sicily. We will speak of the tenths of the territory of JEtna
and Leontini. Give heed, 0 judges, carefully. The lauds are
fertile ; it is the third year ; Apronius is the farmer. I will
speak a little of the people of JEtna ; for they themselves at
the former pleading spoke in the name of their city. You recol
lect that Artemidorus of ./Etna, the chief of that deputation,
said, in the name of his city, that Apronius had come to
^Etna with the slaves of Venus ; that he had summoned the
magistrates before him ; that he had ordered a couch to be
spread for him in the middle of the forum ; that he was accus
tomed eveiy day to feast not only in public, but at the public
expense j that, when at those feasts the concert began to
sound, and slaves began to serve him with wine in larger
goblets, then he used to detain the cultivators of the soil, and
not only with injustice, but even with insolence, to extort
from them whatever quantity of corn he had ordered them to
supply. You heard all these things, 0 judges, all which I
now pass by and leave unnoticed. I say nothing of the-luxury
of Apronius, nothing of his insolence, nothing of his unex
ampled profligacy and wickedness ; I will only speak of the
gain and profit made out of one district in one year, so that
you may the more easily be able to form your conjectures of
the whole three years and of the whole of Sicily ; but I do
not mean to say much about the people of JEtna, for they
have come hither themselves, they have brought with them
their public documents ; they have proved to you what gains
were made by that honest man, the intimate friend of the
prsetor, Apronius. I pray of you learn this from their own
testimony. Read the testimony of the people of ^Etna.
[The testimony of the people of jEtna is read.]
XLV. What are you saying ? Speak, speak, I pray you,
louder, that the Roman people may hear about its revenues,
its cultivators of the soil, its allies, and its friends. " Threa
hundred thousand medimni ; and fifty thousand sesterces."
Oh, the immortal gods ! Does one district in one year give
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 34:1
three hundred thousand modii of wheat, and fifty thousand
sesterces besides, as a compliment to Apronius ? Did the
tenths sell for so much less than they were really worth ? or,
though they had been sold at a sufficiently high price, was
such a quantity of corn and money nevertheless exacted
by main force from the cultivators ? For whichever of these
you say was the truth, blame and criminality will attach
to it. For you certainly will not say (what I wish you would
say) that this quantity never came to Apronius. So I will
hold you here, not only by the public covenants and letters,
but also from the private ones of the cultivators, so as to let
you understand that you were not more diligent in executing
robberies, than I have been in detecting them. Will you
be able to bear this 1 Will any one defend you 1 Will these
men be able to endure this, if they are inclined to pronounce
a sentence favourable to you, — that Quintus Apronius, at
one visit, out of one district, (besides all the money which
was paid him, and which I have mentioned,) should have
taken three hundred thousand modii of wheat, under the
name of a compliment ? What ! are they the men of JEtna.
alone who say this 1 Ay, the Centuripans also, who are
in occupation of far the largest part of the JEtnsean district,
to whose ambassadors, most noble men, Andron and Artemon,
their senate gave commissions which had reference to their
city in his public capacity, concerning those injuries which
the citizens of Centuripa sustained not in their own terri
tories, but in those of others. The senate and people of
Centuripa did not choose to send ambassadors ; but the Cen-
turipan cultivators of the soil, which is the greatest body
of such men in Sicily, a body of most honourable and most
wealthy men, themselves selected three ambassadors, fellow-
citizens of their own, in order that by their evidence you
might be made aware of the calamities, not of one district
only, but of almost all Sicily. For the Centuripans are
engaged as cultivators of the soil in almost every part of
Sicily. And they are the more important and the more
trustworthy witnesses against you, because the other cities
are influenced by their own distresses alone, the Centuripans,
as they occupy land in almost every district, have felt the
injuries and wrongs of the other cities also.
XLVI. But as I have said, the case of the men of ^Etna is
342 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
clear enough, and established both by public and by private
documents. The task allotted to my diligence is to be re
quired of me rather in the district of Leontini, for this reason,
because the Leontini themselves have not assisted me much by
their public authority. Nor, in truth, while that fellow -was
preetor, did these injuries of the farmers very greatly affect them,
or rather, I might say, they did them good. This may, perhaps,
appear a marvellous or even an incredible thing to you, that
in such general distress of the cultivators of the soil, the
Leontini, who were the heads of the corn interest, should have
been free from injury and calamity. This is the reason, O
judges, that in the territory of Leontini, no one of the Leon
tini, with the exception of the single family of Mnasistratus,
occupies any land. And so, 0 judges, you shall hear the evi
dence of Mnasistratus, a most honest and virtuous man. Do
not expect to hear any others of the Leontini, whom not only
Apronius, but whom even a tempest in their fields could not
injure. They in truth not only suffered no inconvenience,
but even in the rapine of Apronius they found gain and ad
vantage. Wherefore, since the city and embassy of the Leontini
has failed me on account of the cause which I have mentioned,
I must devise a plan and contrive a way for myself by which
I may get at the gain of Apronius, or even at his enormous
and wicked booty. The tenths of the Leontini territory were
sold in the third year of Verres's praetorship for thirty-six
thousand medimni of wheat; that is, for two hundred and
twenty-six thousand modii of wheat. A great price, 0 judges,
a great price ; and I cannot deny it. Therefore it is certain
that there must have been a loss, or at all events not a great
gain to the farmers. For this very often happens to men who
have taken a contract at a high rate. What will you think
if I prove to you that, by this one purchase, there were mado
a hundred thousand modii of profit ? what if it was two hun
dred thousand] what if three? what if four hundred thousand
was the sum ? Will you still doubt for whom that immense
booty was acquired1? Will any one say that I am unfair if from
the mere magnitude of the gain made I form a conjecture as
to the direction of the stolen goods and plunder 1 What if I
prove to you, 0 judges, that those men who are making four
hundred thousand modii of profit, would have suffered a loss
if your iniquity, 0 Verres, if judges of your retinue had not
IV. AGAINST VEERES. 343
stepped in ? Can any one doubt, in a case of so much gain
and so much iniquity, that you made such immense profit by
dishonest means f that for such immense gains you were wil
ling to be dishonest ?
XLVII. How then, 0 judges, am I to arrive at this know
ledge of how much profit was made 1 Not from the accounts of
Apronius, for when I sought for them, I could not find them,
and when I brought him into court, I made him deny that he
kept any accounts at all. If he was telling lies, why did he
remove them out of the way, if they were likely to do you
no harm ? If he really had kept any accounts at all, does
not that alone prove plainly enough, that it was not his own
business that he was conducting ? For it is a quality of tenths,
that they cannot be managed without many papers ; for it is
necessary to keep an account of, and to set down in books the
names of all the cultivators, and with each name the amount
of their tenth. All the cultivators made returns of their acres
according to your command and regulation; I do not believe
that any one made a return of a smaller quantity than he had
in cultivation, when there were so many crosses, so many
penalties, so many judges of that retinue before his eyes. On
an acre of Leontini ground about a medimnus of wheat is
usually sown, according to the regular and constant allowance
of seed. The land returns about eightfold on a fair avirage,
but in an extraordinarily favourable season, about tenfold. And
whenever that is the case, it then happens that the tenth is
just the same quantity as was sown; that is to say, as many
acres as are sown, so many medimni are due. As this was the
case, I say first of all, that the tenths of the territory of Leon
tini were sold for many more thousand medimni than there
were thousands of acres sown in the district of Leontini. But
if it was impossible for them to produce more than ten me
dimni on an acre, and if it was fair that a medimnus should
be paid out of each acre liable to the payment of tenths, when
the land produced a tenfold crop, which however very seldom,
happened, what was the calculation of the farmer if indeed it
was the tenths of the cultivator that were being sold, and not
his whole property, when he bought the tenths for many more
medimni than there had been acres sown ? In the Leontini
district the list and return made of acres is not more than
thirty thousand.
344 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
XLVITI. The tenths were sold for thirty-six thousand
medimni. Did Apronius make a blunder, or rather was he
mad ? Ay, he would indeed have been mad if it had been
lawful for the cultivators to give only what was due from
them, and had not rather been compulsory on them to give
whatever Apronius commanded. If I prove that no man
gave less for his tenths than three medimni to the acre, you.
will admit, I suppose, that, even supposing the produce
amounted to a tenfold crop, no one paid less than three
tenths. And indeed this was begged as a favour from Apro
nius, that they might be allowed to compound at three me
dimni an acre. For, as four and even five were exacted from
many people, and as many had not only not a grain of corn,
but not even a wisp of straw left out of all their crop and
after all their year's labour ; then the cultivators of Cen-
turipa, which are the main body of agriculturists in the Leon-
tini district, assembled in one place. They sent as a delegate
to Apronius, Andron of Centuripa, a man among the first of
his state for honour and nobility, (the same man whom now
the city of Centuripa has sent to this trial as a deputy and as
a witness,) in order that he might plead with him the cause
of the cultivators of the soil, and beg of him not to exact of
the Centuripan cultivators more than three medimni for each
acre. This request was with difficulty obtained from Apro
nius, as a most excessive kindness to those men who were even
then safe. And when this was obtained, this is what was
obtained, forsooth, that they might be allowed to pay three
tenths instead of one. But if your own interest had not been
at stake in the matter, 0 Verres, they would rather have en
treated you not to be made to pay more than one tenth, than
have begged of a promise not to be made to pay more than
three. Now, that at the present time I may pass over those
rules which Apronius, in a kingly, or rather in a tyrannical
spirit, made with respect to the cultivators, and that I may
not at present call those men from whom he took all their
corn, and to whom he left nothing not only of their corn, but
nothing even of their property; just see how much gain is
made of these three medimni, which he considered as a great
favour and indulgence.
XLIX. The return of acres in the district of Leontini is
thirty thousand. This amounts to ninety thousand medimni
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 345
of wheat, that is to say, to five hundred and forty thousand
modii of wheat. Deduct two hundred and sixteen thousand
niodii of wheat, being what the tenths were sold for, and there
remain three hundred and twenty-four thousand modii of
wheat; add to the sum total of five hundred and forty thou
sand modii three fiftieths, that is to say, thirty-two thousand
four hundred modii of wheat, (for three fiftieths besides were
exacted from every one ;) this now amounts to three hun
dred and fifty-six thousand four hundred modii of wheat. But
I said that four hundred thousand sesterces of profit had been
made. For I do not include in this calculation those who
•were not allowed to compound at three medimni an acre.
But that by this present calculation I may make out the sum
which I promised to do, many were compelled besides to pay two
sesterces, and many even five, with each medimnus, and those
who had to pay least paid a sesterce with every medimnus. To
take the least of these sums, as we calculated there were ninety
thousand medimni, we must add to that, according to this new
and infamous example here given, ninety thousand sesterces.
Will he now dare to tell me, that he sold the tenths at a high
price, when he took for himself more than twice as much as
he sent to the Roman people out of the same district ? You
sold the tenths of the Leontine district for two hundred and
sixteen thousand modii of wheat 1 If you did so according
to law, it was a fine price ; if your caprice was the law, it was
a low price ; if you sold them so that those were called tenths
which were in reality a half, you sold them at a very low
price. For the yearly produce of all Sicily might be sold for
much more, if that was what the senate or people of Rome
had desired you to do. Indeed, the tenths were often sold for
as much, when they were sold according to the law of Hiero,
as they have been sold for now under the law of Verres. Let
me have the accounts of the sale of tenths under Caius
Norbanus.
[The account of the sale of the tenths in the Leontine district
under Caius Norbanus is read.~\
And yet, then, there were no trials about the return of
acres ; nor was Artemidorus Cornelius a judge, nor did a
Sicilian magistrate exact from a cultivator whatever the
farmer demanded ; nor was it entreated as a favour from the
farmer to be allowed to compound at three medimni an acre ;
346 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
nor was a cultivator obliged to give an additional present of
money, nor to add three-fiftieths of corn. And yet a greaf
quantity of corn was sent to the Roman people.
L. But what is the meaning of these fiftieths 1 what is the
meaning of these additional presents of money 1 By what
right, and, what is more, in what manner did you do this ?
The cultivator gave the money. How or whence did he get
it ? If he had wished to be very liberal, he would have used
a more heaped up measure, as men formerly used to do in the
matter of the tenths, when they were sold by fair laws, and on
fair terms. He gave the money. Where did he get it ? from
his corn? As if, while you were prsetor, he had anything
to sell. Something, then, must be taken from his principal,
in order to add this pecuniary gratuity for Apronius to all
the profit which he derived from the lands. The next thing
is, Did they give it willingly or unwillingly 1 Willingly ?
They were very fond, I suppose, of Apronius. Unwillingly ?
How, then, were they compelled to do so, except by violence
and ill-treatment 1 Again ; that man, that most senseless
man, in the selling of the tenths, caused additional sums to
be added to every tenth. It was not much ; he added two
or three thousand sesterces. In the three years he made
about five hundred thousand sesterces. He did this neither
according to any precedent, nor by any right; nor did he make
any return of that money ; nor can any man ever imagine how
he is going to defend himself against this petty charge.
And, as this is the case, do you dare to say that you sold
the tenths at a high price, when it is evident that you sold
the property and fortunes of the cultivators, not for the
sake of the Roman people, but with a view to your own gain.
As if any steward, from a farm which had been used to pro
duce ten thousand sesterces, having cut down and sold the
trees, having taken away the buildings and the stock, and
having driven off all the cattle, sent his master twenty
thousand sesterces instead of ten, and made a hundred
thousand more for himself. At first the master, not knowing
the injury that had been done to him, would be glad, and be
delighted with his steward, because he had got so much more
profit out of the farm ; but afterwards, when he heard that
all those things on which the profit and cultivation of his
farm depends have been removed and sold, he would punish
IV. AGAINST YERRES. 347
his steward with the greatest severity, and think himself very
ill used. So also, the Roman people, when it hears that Caius
Verres has sold the tenths for more than that most innocent
man, Caius Sacerdos, whom he succeeded, thinks that it has
got a good steward and guardian over its lands and crops ;
but when it finds out that he has sold all the stock of the culti
vators, all the resources of the revenue, and has destroyed all
the hopes of their posterity by his avarice, — that he has
devastated and drained the allotments and the lands subject
to tribute, — that he has made himself most enormous gain and
booty, — it will perceive that it has been shamefully treated,
and will think that man worthy of the severest punishment.
LI. By what, then, can this be made evident ? Chiefly by
this fact, that the land of the province of Sicily liable to the
payment of tenths is deserted through the avarice of that
man. Nor does it happen only that those who have remained
on their lands are now cultivating a smaller number of acres,
but also very many rich men, farmers on a large scale, and
skilful men, have deserted large and productive farms, and
abandoned their whole allotments. That may be very easily
ascertained from the public documents of the states ; because
according to the law of Hiero the number of cultivators is
every year entered in the books by public authority before
the magistrates. Read now how many cultivators of the
Leontine district there were when Verres took the govern
ment. Eighty-three. And how many made returns in his
third year? Thirty-two. I see that there were fifty-one
cultivators so entirely got rid of that they had no successors.
How many cultivators were there of the district of Mutyca,
when you arrived 1 Let us see from the public documents.
A hundred and eighty-eight. How many in your third year ?
A hundred and one. That one district has to regret eighty-
seven cultivators, owing to that man's ill-treatment, and to that
extent our repxiblic has to regret the loss of so many heads
of families, and demands them back at his hand, since they
are the real revenues of the Roman people. The district of
Herbita had in his first year two hundred and fifty-seven
cultivators ; in his third, a hundred and twenty. From this
region a hundred and thirty-seven heads of families have fled
like banished men. The district of Agyrium — what men
lived in that land! how honourable, how wealthy they were \
348 CICERO'S OR Af IONS.
— had two hundred and fifty cultivators in the first year of
your preetorship. What had it in the third year ? Eighty,
— as you have heard the Agyrian deputies read from their
public documents.
LI I. 0 ye immortal gods ! If you had driven away out
of the whole of Sicily a hundred and seventy cultivators
of the soil, could you, with impartial judges, escape condem
nation 'I When the one district of Agyrium is less populous
by a hundred and seventy cultivators, will not you, 0 judges,
form your conjectures of the state of the whole province '£
And you will find nearly the same state of things in every
district liable to the payment of tenths, and that those to
•whom anything has been left out of a large patrimony, have
remained behind with a much smaller stock, and cultivating
a much smaller number of acres, because they were afraid, if
they departed, that they should lose all the rest of their
fortunes ; but as for those to whom he had left nothing re
maining which they could lose, they have fled not only from
their farms, but from their cities. The very men who have
remained — scarcely a tenth part of the old cultivators of the
soil — were about to leave all their lands too, if Metellus had
not sent letters to them from Rome, saying that he would
sell the tenths according to the law of Hiero ; and if he had
not entreated them to sow as much land as they could, which
they had always done for their own sakes, when no one en
treated them, as long as they understood that they were sow
ing, and labouring, and going to expense for themselves and for
the Roman people, — not for Verres and Apronius. But now,
O judges, if you neglect the fortunes of the Sicilians, — if
you show no anxiety about the treatment the allies of the
Roman people receive from our magistrates, at all events
undertake and defend the common cause of the Roman
people. I say that the cultivators have been driven out, —
that the lands subject to tribute have been devastated and
drained by Verres — that the whole province has been depopu
lated and tyrannized over. All these things I prove by
the public documents of the cities, and by the private evi
dence of most unimpeachable men.
LIII. What would you have more 1 Do you wait till
Lucius Metellus, who by his commands and by his power
has deterred many witnesses from appearing against Verres,
IV. AGAINST VERRES 349
shall himself, though absent, bear testimony to his wicked
ness, and dishonesty, and audacity 1 I think not. But he,
who was his successor, has had the best opportunity of know
ing the truth. That is true, but he is hindered by his friend
ship for him. Still, he ought to inform us accurately in what
state the province is. He ought, still he is not forced to do so.
Does any one require the evidence of Lucius Metellus against
Verres ? No one. Does any one demand it 1 I think not.
What, however, if I prove by the evidence and letters of
Lucius Metellus that all these things are true ? What will
you say then 1 That Metellus writes falsely ? or that he is
desirous of injuring his friend 1 or that he, though he is
prsetor, does not know in what state the province is? Read
the letters of Lucius Metellus, which he sent to Cnseus Pom-
pey and Marcus Crassus, the consuls, those which he sent to
Marcus Mummius, the praetor, those which he sent to the
qusestors of the city.
[The letter of Lucius Metellus is read.~\
" I sold the tenths according to the law of Hiero." When
he writes that he had sold them according to the law of Hiero,
what is he writing 1 Why, that he had sold them as all others
had done, except Verres. When he writes that he had sold
them according to the law of Hiero, what is he writing ? Why,
that he had restored the privileges granted to the Sicilians by
the kindness of our ancestors and taken away by Verres, and
their rights, and the terms on which they became our allies
and friends. He mentions at what price he sold the tenths of
each district. After that what does he write ? Read the rest
of the letter. — " The greatest pains has been taken by me to
sell the tenths for as good a price as possible." Why then,
O Metellus, did you not sell them for as much as Verres ?
" Because I found the allotments deserted, the fields empty,
the province in a wretched and ruined condition." What ?
And as for the land that was sown, how was any one found
to sow it ? Read the letters.
[The letters are read.]
He says that he had sent letters, and that, when he arrived,
he had given a positive promise ; he had interposed his autho
rity to prevail on them, and had all but given hostages to
the cultivators that he would be in no respect like Verres.
But what is this about which he says that he took so much
350 CICERO S ORATIONS.
pains ? Read — " To prevail on the cultivators of the soil, who
-were left, to sow as largely as they could." Who were left 1
What -does this mean? — left? After what war ? after what
devastation ? What mighty slaughter was there in Sicily, or
what was there of such duration and such disaster while you
were prsetor, that your successor had to collect and recover
the cultivators who were left ?
LIV. When Sicily was harassed in the Carthaginian wars,
and afterwards, in our fathers' and our own recollection, when
great bands of fugitive slaves twice occtipied the province,
still there was no destruction of the cultivators of the soil ;
then, if the sowing was hindered, or the crop lost, the yearly
revenue was lost too, but the number of owners and ctiltiva-
tors of*- the land remained undiminished. Then those officers
who succeeded the preetors Marcus Lsevinus, or Publius Rupi-
lius, or Marcus Aquillius in that province, had not to collect
the cultivators who were left. Did Verres and Apronius
bring so much more distress on the province of Sicily thau.
either Hasdrubal with his army of Carthaginians, or Athenio
with his numerous bands of runaway slaves, that in those
times, as soon as the enemy was subdued, all the land was
ploughed, and the prsetor had not to send letters to beg
the cultivator to come to him, and entreat him to sow as
much land as he could ; but now, even after the departure
of this most ill-omened pestilence, no one could be found
who would till his land of his own free-will j and very few-
were left to return to their farms and their own familiar
household gods, even when urged by the authority of Lucius
Metellus ? Do not you feel, 0 most audacious and most
senseless of -men, that you are destroyed by these letters ? Do
you not see that, when your successor addresses those agri
culturists who are left, he writes this in express words, that
they are left, not after war or after any calamity of that
sort, but after your wickedness, and tyranny, and avarice,
and cruelty 1 Read the rest—" But still in such quantities
as the difficulty of the times and the poverty of the cultivators
permitted." The poverty of the cultivators, he says. If I,
as . the accuser, were to dwell so repeatedly on the same sub
ject, I should be afraid of wearying your attention, 0 judges ;
but Metellus cries out, '•' If I had not written letters." That
is not enough — " If I had not, when on the spot, assured
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 351
them." Even that is not enough — " The cultivators who
were left," he says. Left 1 In that mournful word he inti
mates the condition of nearly the whole province of Sicily.
He adds, " the poverty of the cultivators."
LV. Wait a little, 0 judges, wait a little, if you can, for
confirmation of my speech. I say that the cultivators have
been driven away by that man's avarice : Metellus writes word
that those who were left have been reassured by him. I say
i/ */
that the fields have been abandoned, and the allotments de
serted : Metellus writes word that there is great penury among
the cultivators. When he writes this, he shows that the allies
and friends of the Roman people have been cast down, and
driven off, and stripped of all their fortunes ; and yet if any
calamity had happened to these men by his means, even with
out any injury to our revenues, you ought to punish him,
especially while judging according to that law which was
established for the sake of the allies. But when our allies
are oppressed and ruined, and the revenues of the Roman
people diminished at the same time, — when our supplies of
corn and provisions, our wealth, and the safety of the city and
of our armies for the future is destroyed by his avarice, at
least have a regard to the advantage of the Roman people, if
you have no anxiety to show your regard for our most faithful
allies. And that you may be aware that man had no con
sideration for either the revenue or for our posterity, in com
parison with present gain and booty, see what Metellus writes
at the end : — " I have taken care of the revenues for the
future." He says that he has taken care of the revenues for
the future. He would not write that he had taken care of
the revenues, if he had not meant to show this, that you had
ruined the revenues. For what reason was there for Metellus
taking care for the future of the revenues in respect of the
tenths, and of the whole corn interest, if that man had not
diverted the revenues of the Roman people to his own profit ?
And Metellus himself, who is taking care of the revenues for
the future, who is reassembling the cultivators of the soil who
are left, what does he effect but this, to make those men
plough, if they can, to whom Verres's satellite Apronius has
hardly left one plough remaining, but who yet remained on
their land in the hope and expectation of Metellus 1 What
more ? What became of the rest of the Sicilians 1 What be-
352 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
came of that numerous body of cultivators who were not only
driven away from their farms, but who even fled from their
cities, from the province, having had all their property and all
their fortunes taken from them ? By what means can they be
recalled 1 How many prsetors of incorruptible wisdom will be
required to re-establish, in process of time, that multitude of
cultivators in their farms and their habitations ?
LVI. And that you may not marvel that so great a multi
tude has fled, as you find, from the public documents and from
the returns of the cultivators, has fled, know that his cruelty
and wickedness towards the cultivators was so excessive, (it is
an incredible statement to make, 0 judges, but it is both a fact,
and one that is notorious over all Sicily,) that men, on account
of the insults and licentiousness of the collectors, actually
killed themselves. It is proved that Diocles of Centuripa, a
wealthy man, hung himself the very day that it was announced
that Apronius had purchased the tenths. A man of high
birth, Archonidas of Elorum, said that Dyrrachinus, the first
man of his city, slew himself in the same way, when he heard
that the collector had made a return, that, according to Verres's
edict, he owed him a sum that he could not make good at the
expense of all his property.
Now you, though you always were the most dissolute and
cruel of all mortals, still you never would have allowed, (be
cause the groanings and lamentations of the province brought
danger on your own head,) — you would never, I say, have
allowed men to seek refuge from your injustice in hanging
and death, if the matter had not tended to your profit and to
your own acquisition of booty. What ! would you have suf
fered it? Listen, 0 judges; for I must strive with all my
sinews, and labour earnestly to make all men perceive how
infamous, how evident, how undeniable a crime they are seek
ing to efface by means of money. This is a grave charge, a
serious charge, — it is the most serious one which has been
made in the memory of man, ever since trials for pecula
tion and extortion were first instituted, — that a prsetor of
the Roman people has had collectors of the tenths for his
partners.
LVII. It is not the case that a private individual is now
for the first time having this charge brought against him by
an enemy, or a defendant by his accuser. Long ago, while
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 353
sitting on his seat of justice as prsetor, while he had the pro
vince of Sicily, when he was not only feared (as is common)
on account of his absolute power, but also on account of his
cruelty, (which is his especial characteristic,) he heard this
charge urged against him a thousand times, when it was not
carelessness which delayed him from avenging it, but the
consciousness of his wickedness and avarice that kept him in
check. For the collectors used to say openly, and, above all
the rest, that one who had the greatest influence with him,
and who was laying waste the most extensive districts, Apro-
nius, that very little of these immense gains came to them,
that the prsetor was their partner. When the collectors were
in the habit of saying this all over the province, and mixing
up your name with so base and infamous a business, did it
never come into your mind to take care of your own charac
ter ? Did it never occur to you to look to your liberty and
fortunes? When the terror of your name was constantly
present to the ears and minds of the cultivators, — when the
collectors made use, not of their own power, but of your
wickedness and your name to compel the cultivators to come
to terms with them, — did you think that there would be any
tribunal at Rome so profligate, so abandoned, so mercenary,
that any protection from its judgment would be found for
you 1 — when it was notorious that, when the tenths had been
sold contrary to the regulations, the laws, and the customs of
all men, the collectors, while employed in seizing the property
and fortunes of the cultivators, were used to say that the shares
were yours, the affair yours, the plunder yours; and that you
said nothing, and though you could not conceal that you were
aware of it, were still able to bear and endure it, because the
magnitude of the gain obscured the magnitude of the danger,
and because the desire of money had a good deal more influ
ence over you than the fear of judgment 1 Be it so ; you
cannot deny the rest. You have not even left yourself this
resource, to be able to say that you heard nothing of this, —
that no mention of your infamy ever came to your ears ; for
the cultivators were complaining with groans and tears. Did
you not know it 1 The whole province was loud in its indig
nation. Did no one tell you of it 1 Complaints were being
made of your injuries, and meetings held on the subject at
Rome, — were you ignorant of this ? Were you ignorant of
A A
354 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
all these facts 1 What ? when Publius Rubrius summoned
Quintus Apronius openly at Syracuse in your hearing, at a
great assembly of the people, to be bound over to stand a trial,
offering to prove, " that Apronius had frequently said that
you were his partner in the affair of the tenths." Did not
these words strike you ? did they not agitate you 1 did they
not arouse you to take care of your own liberty and fortunes?
You were silent; you even pacified their quarrel; you took
pains to prevent the trial from coming on.
LVIII. 0 ye immortal gods! could either an innocent man
have endured this 1 or would not even a man ever so guilty, if it
were only because he thought that there might be a trial at
Rome hereafter, have endeavoured by some dissimulation to
study his character in the eyes of men ? What is the case ?
A wager is offered about a matter affecting your position as a
free citizen, and your fortunes. Do you sit still and say
nothing 1 do not you follow up the matter ? do not you per
severe ? do not you ask to whom Apronius said it 1 who heard
him ? whence it arose 1 how it was stated to have happened ?
If any one had whispered in your ear, and told you that
Apronius was in the habit of saying that you were his partner,
you ought to have been roused, to have summoned Apronius,
and not to have been satisfied yourself with him, till you had
satisfied the opinion of others with respect to yourself. But
when in the crowded forum, in a great concourse of people,
this charge was urged, in word and pretence indeed, against
Apronius, but in reality against you, could you ever have re
ceived such a blow in silence, unless you had decided that,
say what you would in so evident a case, you would only make
the matter worse ? Many men have dismissed quaestors,
lieutenants, prefects, and tribunes, and ordered them to leave
the province, because they thought that their own reputation
was being injured through their misconduct, or because they
considered that they were behaving ill in some particular.
Would you never have addressed Apronius, a man scarcely a
free man, profligate, abandoned, infamous, who could not pre
serve, I will not say an honest mind, but not even a pure soul,
with even one harsh word, and that too when smarting under
disgrace and insult yourself? And moreover, the respect due
to a partnership would not have been so sacred in your eyes
as to make you indifferent to the danger you were in, if you
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 355
had not seen the matter -was so well known and so notorious to
every one. Publius Scandilius, a Roman knight, whom yon are
all acquainted with, did afterwards adopt the same legal pro
ceedings against this same Apronius respecting that partner
ship, which Rubrius had wished to adopt. He urged them
on ; he pressed it, he gave him no respite; security was given
to the amount of five thousand sesterces ; Scandilius began to
demand recuperators or a judge.
LIX. Does not this wicked prsetor seem to be hemmed in
now within sufficiently narrow bounds in his own province
ay, and even on his own throne and tribunal ; so that he
must either while present and sitting on the bench allow a
trial to proceed affecting his own liberty, or else confess that
he must be convicted by every tribunal in the world 1 The
trial is on this formula, " that Apronius says that you are his
partner in the matter of the tenths." The province is yours ;
you are present, judgment is demanded from you yourself.
What do you do ? What do you decree 1 You say that you
will assign judges. You do well ; though where will there be
found judges of such courage as to dare, in his province, when
the prsetor himself is present, to decide in a manner not only
contrary to his will, but adverse even to his fortunes 1 How
ever, be it so ; the case is evident ; there was no one who did
not say that he had heard this distinctly ; all the most respect
able men were most undoubted witnesses of it ; there was no
one in all Sicily who did not know that the tenths belonged to
the prsetor, no one who had not heard Apronius frequently
say so; moreover, there was a fine body of settlers at Syracuse,
many Roman knights, men of the highest consideration, out
of which number the judges must be selected, who could not
possibly decide in any other manner. Scandilius does not
cease to demand judges ; then that innocent man, who was so
eager to efface that suspicion, and to remove it from himself,
says that he will assign judges from his own retinue.
LX. In the name of the good faith of gods and men,
who is it that I am accusing? in whose case am I no^
desirous that my industry and diligence should be proved}
What is it that I sought to effect and obtain by speaking
and meditating on this matter 1 I have hold, I have hold,
I say, in the middle of the revenues of the Roman people, in
the very crops of the province of Sicily, of a thief, manifestly
A A 2
3-36 CICERO 3 ORATIONS.
embezzling the whole revenue derived from the corn, an im
mense sum : I have hold of him ; so I say that he cannot
deny it. For what will he say 1 Security has been entered
into for a prosecution against your agent Apronius, in a mat
ter in which all your fortunes are at stake — on the charge of
having been in the habit of saying that you were his partner
in the tenths. All men are waiting to see how anxious you
will be about this, how you will endeavour to give men a
favourable opinion of you and of your innocence. Will you
here appoint as judges your physician, and your soothsayer,
and your crier, or even that man whom you had in your
train, in case there was any affair of importance, a judge like
Cassius, Papirius Potamo, a severe man of the old equestrian
school1? Scandilius began to demand judges from the body of
settlers ; then Verres says that he will not entrust a trial in
which his own character is at stake, to any one except his
own people. The brokers think it a scandalous thing for
a man to protest against, as unjust to himself, that form in
which they transact their business. The praetor protests
against the whole province as unjust to him. Oh, unexampled
impudence ! Does he demand to be acquitted at Rome, who
has decided in his own province that it is impossible that he
should be acquitted? who thinks that money will have a
greater influence over senators most carefully chosen, than
fear will over three judges ? But Scandilius says that he will
not say a word before a judge like Artemidorus, and still he
presses the matter on, and loads you with favourable con
ditions, if you choose to avail yourself of them. If you decide
that, in the whole province of Sicily, no capable judge or re
cuperator can be found, he requires of you to refer the matter
to Rome ; and on this you exclaim that the man is a dishonest
man, for demanding a trial in which your character is at
stake to take place in a place where he knows that you
are unpopular. You say you will not send the case to
Rome. You say that you will not appoint judges out of
the body of settlers ; you put forward your own retinue.
Scandilius says that he shall abandon the whole affair for the
present, and return at his own time. What do you say to
that ? what do you do 1 you compel Scandilius to do
what ? to prosecute the matter regularly 1 In a shameless
manner you put an end to the long-expected trial of your
IV. AGAINST VEERES. 357
character ; you do not do that — what do you do, then ? Do
you permit Apronius to select what judges he chooses out of
your retinue 1 It is a scandalous thing that you should give
one of the parties a power of selecting judges from that
worthless crew, rather than give both a power of rejecting
iudges from a respectable class. You do neither of those
things — what then? Is there anything more abominable
that can be done? Yes; for he compels Scandilius to give
and pay over that five thousand sesterces to Apronius. What
neater thing could be done by a prsetor desirous of a fair
reputation, — one who was anxious to repel from himself all
suspicion, and to deliver himself from infamy ?
LXI. He had been a common topic of conversation, of
reproach, of abuse. A worthless and debauched man had
been in the habit of saying that the praetor was his partner.
The matter had come before the courts, had come to trial ;
he, upright and innocent man that he was, had an oppor
tunity, by punishing Apronius, of relieving himself from the
most serious disgrace. What punishment does he devise ?
what penalty for Apronius ? He compels Scandilius to pay
to Apronius five thousand sesterces, as reward and wages for
his unprecedented rascality, his audacity, and his proclamation
of this wicked partnership. What difference did it make, 0
most audacious man, whether you made this decree, or
whether you yourself made that profession and declaration
concerning yourself which Apronius was in the habit of
making 1 The man whom, if there had been shame, ay, if
there had even been any fear in you, you ought not to have
let go without punishment, you could not allow to come off
without a reward. You might see the truth in every case,
O judges, from this single affair of Scandilius. First of all,
that this charge about the partnership in the tenths was not
cooked up at Eome, was not invented by the accuser ; it was
not (as we are accustomed sometimes to say in making a
defence for a man) a domestic or back-stairs accusation ; it
was not originated in a time of your danger, but it was an
old charge, bruited about long ago, when you were prsetor,
not made up at Rome by your enemies, but brought to Rome
from the province. At the same time his great favour to
Apronius may be clearly seen ; also the, I will not say con
fession, but the boast of Apronius, about him. Besides all
358 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
this, you can take as clearly proved this first, that, in his
own province, he would not entrust a trial in which his repu
tation was at stake, to any one out of his own retinue.
LXII. Is there any judge who has not been convinced,
from the very beginning of my accusation respecting the
collection of tenths, that he had made an attack on the
property and fortunes of the cultivators of the soil 1 Who is
there who did not at once decide, from what I then proved,
that he had sold the tenths under a law quite novel, and,
therefore, no law at all, contrary to the usage and established
regulations of all his predecessors ? But even if I had not
such judges as I have, such impartial, such careful, such
conscientious judges, is there any one whatever who has not
long ago formed his opinion and his judgment from the
magnitude of the injuries done, the dishonesty of the decrees,
the iniquity of the tribunals? Even although a man may
be somewhat careless in judging, — somewhat indifferent to
the laws, to his duty to the republic, to our allies and friends,
what then 1 Can even such a man doubt of the dishonesty
of that man, when he is aware that such vast gains were
made, — such iniquitous compromises extorted by violence
and terror 1 — when he knows that cities were compelled, by
violence and imperious commands, by the fear of scourges
and death, to give such great rewards, not only to Aprouius
and to men like him, but even to the slaves of Venus 1 But
if any one is but little influenced by the injuries done to our
allies, — if there be any one who is not moved by the flight,
the calamities, the banishment, and the suicides of the cul
tivators of the soil ; still I cannot doubt that the man who
knows, both from the documents of the cities and the letter
of Lucius Metellus, that Sicily has been laid waste and the
farms deserted, must decide that it is quite impossible that
any other than the severest judgment should be passed
on that man. Will there be any one who can conceal from
himself, or be indifferent to these facts ? I have brought
before you trials commenced respecting the partnership in the
tenths, but prevented by that man from being brought to a
decision. What is there that any one can possibly desire plainer
than this ? I have no doubt that I have satisfied you, 0 judges.
But I will go further ; not, indeed, in order that this may be
proved more completely to your satisfaction than I feel sure
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 359
that it already is, but that he may at last give over his
impudence, — may cease at last to believe that he can pur
chase these things which he himself was always ready to sell,
his good faith, his oath, truth, duty, and religion ; — that his
friends may cease to keep continually saying things which
may be injury, a stain, and odium, and infamy to all of us.
But what friends are they 1 Alas, the order of senators !
wretched, and unpopular, and detested through the fault and
unworthiness of a few ! That Alba .^Emilius, sitting at the
entrance of the market, should say openly that Verres had
gained his cause, — that he had bought the judges, one for
four hundred thousand sesterces, another for five, the one who
who went cheapest, for three ! And when he was answered
that that was impossible; that many witnesses would
give evidence, and besides, that I should not desert the
cause, — " Though," said he, " every one were to make every
possible statement against him, still, unless the matter be
brought home to him so evidently that no answer can be
given, we have gained the cause." You say well, Alba. I
will agree to your conditions. You think that conjecture
avails nothing at a trial, — that suspicion avails nothing, — that
the character of one's previous life avails nothing, — nor the
evidence of virtuous men, — nor the authority or letters of
cities. You demand evident proof. I do not ask for judges
like Cassius. I do not ask for the ancient impartiality of
courts of justice. I do not, 0 judges, implore your good
faith, your self-respect, your conscientiousness in giving judg
ment. I will take Alba for my judge ; that man who ia
himself desirous of being considered an unprincipled buffoon :
who by the buffoons has always been considered as a
gladiator, rather than as a buffoon. I will bring forward such
a case about the tenths, that Alba shall confess that Verres,
in the case of the corn, and in that of the property of the culti
vators of the soil, has been an open and undisguised robber.
LXIII. He says that he sold the tenths of the Leontine
district at a high price. I showed at the beginning, that he
ought not to be considered to have sold them at a high price,
who in name indeed sold the tenths, but who in reality, and
by the terms of the sale, and through his law, and through,
his edict, and through the licentiousness of the collectors, left
no tenths at all to the cultivators of the soil. I proved that
360 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
also, that others had sold the tenths of the Leontine district,
and of other districts also, for a high price ; and that they had
sold them according to the law of Hiero ; and that they sold
them for even more than you had, and that then no cultivator
had complained. Nor indeed was there anything of which
any one could complain, when they were sold according to a
law most equitably framed; nor did it ever make any difference
to the cultivator at what price the tenths were sold. For it
is mot the case that, if they be sold at a high price, the culti
vator owes more, if at a low price, less. As the crops are
produced, so are the tenths sold. But it is for the interest of
the cultivator, that his crops should be such that the tenths
may be able to be sold at as high a price as possible. As long
as the cultivator does not give more than a tenth, it is for his
interest that the tenth should be as large as possible. But, I
imagine, you mean this to be the chief article of your defence,
that you sold all the tenths at a high price, but the tenths
of the Leontine district, which produces the most, for two
hundred and sixteen thousand modii of wheat. If I prove
that you could have sold them for a good deal more, but that
you would not knock them down to those who were bidding
against Apronius, and that you adjudged them to Apronius
for much less than you might have adjudged them to others ;
— if I prove this, will even Alba, not only your oldest friend,
but even your lover, be able to acquit you ?
LXI V. I assert that a Roman knight, a man of the highest
honour, Quintus Minucius, with others like himself, was willing
to add to the tenths of the Leontine district not one thousand,
not two thousand, not three thousand modii of wheat, but
thirty thousand modii of wheat to the tenths of one single
district, and that he was not allowed to become the purchaser,
that the matter might not escape the grasp of Apronius. You
cannot by any means deny this, unless you are determined to
deny everything. The business was transacted openly, in a
full assembly, at Syracuse. The whole province is the witness,
because men are accustomed to flock together thither from
all parts at the sale of the tenths. And whether you confess
this, or whether it be proved against you, do you not see in
what important and what evident acts you are detected. First
of all, it is proved that that business and that booty was
yours. For unless it was, why did you prefer that Apronius
IV. AGAINST VEREES. 361
(who every one was saying was only managing your affairs
in the matter of the tenths as your agent) should get the
tenths of the Leontine district rather than Quintus Minucius ?
Secondly, that an enormous and immense profit was made by
you. For if you would not have been influenced by thirty
thousand modii of wheat, at all events Minucius would wil
lingly have given thus much as a compliment to Apronius, if
he had been willing to accept it. How great then must we
suppose the expectation of booty which he entertained to have
been, when he despised and scorned such vast present profit,
acquired without the slightest trouble. Thirdly, Minucius
himself would never have wished to have them at such a
price, if you had been selling the tenths according to the law of
Hiero ; but because he saw that by your new edicts and most
iniquitous resolutions he should get a good deal more than
tenths, on that account he advanced higher. But Apronius
had always even a good deal more permitted to him than you
had announced in your edict. How much gain then can we
suppose was made by him to whom everything was permitted;
when that man was so willing to add so large a compliment,
who would not have had the same licence if he had bought
the tenths? Lastly, unquestionably that defence, under which
you have constantly thought that all your thefts and iniquities
could be concealed, is cut from under your feet j that you
sold the tenths at a high price — that you consulted the interest
of the Roman people — that you provided for plenty of pro
visions. He cannot say this, who cannot deny that he sold
the tenths of one district for thirty thousand modii less than
he might have done ; even if I were to grant you this, that
you did not grant them to Minucius because you had already
adjudged them to Apronius ; for they say that that is what
you are in the habit of saying, and I am expecting to hear it,
and I wish you would make that defence. But, even if it
were so, still you cannot boast of this as a great thing, that
you sold the tenths at a high price, when you admit that there
were people who were willing to buy them at a much higher
price.
LXV. The avarice, then, and covetousness of this man, his
wickedness, and dishonesty, and audacity, are proved, 0 judges,
are proved most incontestably. What more shall I say?
What if his own friends and defenders have formed the same
362 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
opinion that I have 1 What can you have more 1 On the
arrival of Lucius Metellus the praetor, when Verres had made
all his retinue friends of his also by that sovereign medicine of
his, money, men applied to Metellus ; Apronius was brought
before him ; his accuser was a man of the highest considera
tion, Caius Gallius, a senator. He demanded of Metellus to
give him a right of action according to the terms of his edict
against Apronius, " for having taken away property by force
or by fear," which formula of Octavius, Metellus had both
adopted at Rome, and now imported into the province. He
does not succeed ; as Metellus said that he did not wish
by means of such a trial to prejudge the case of Verres him
self in a matter affecting his condition as a free citizen. The
whole retinue of Metellus, grateful men, stood by Apronius.
Caius Gallius, a man of our order, cannot obtain from Lucius
Metellus, his most intimate friend, a trial in accordance with
his own edict. I do not blame Metellus ; he spared a friend
of his — a connexion, indeed, as I have heard him say himself.
I do not, I say, blame Metellus ; but I do marvel how he not
only prejudged the case of a man concerning whom he was
unwilling that any previous decision should take place by
means of judges, but even judged most severely and harshly
respecting him. For, in the first place, if he thought that
Apronius would be acquitted, there was no reason for his fear
ing any previous decision. In the second place, if Apronius
were condemned, all men were likely to think that the cause
Df Verres was involved in his ; this at all events Metellus did
now decide, and he determined that their affairs and their
causes were identical, since he determined that, if Apronius
were condemned, it would be a prejudging of the case ox
Verres. And one fact is at the same time a proof of two
things; both that the cultivators gave much more than they
owed to Apronius because they were constrained by violence
and fear ; and also, that Apronius was transacting Verres's
business in his own name, since Lucius Metellus determined
that Apronius could not be condemned without giving a deci
sion at the same time respecting the wickedness and dis
honesty of Verres.
LXVl. I come now to the letter of Timarchides, his freed-
man and attendant ; and when I have spoken of that, T shall
have finished the whole of my charge respecting the tenths.
IV. AGAINST VEERKE. 363
This is the letter, 0 judges, -which we found at Syracuse, in
the house of Apronius, where we were looking for letters. It
was sent, as it proves itself, on the journey, when Verres had
already departed from the province ; written by the hand of
Timarchides. Read the letter of Timarchides. " Timarchides,
the officer of Verres, wishes health to Apronius." Now I do
not blame this which he has written, " The officer." l For
why should clerks alone assume to themselves this privilege 1
" Lucius Papirius the clerk," I should like this signature to be
common to all attendants, lictors, and messengers.2 " Be
sure and be very diligent in everything which concerns the
prsetor's character." He recommends Verres to Apronius, and
exhorts him to resist his enemies. Your reputation is pro
tected by a very efficient guard, if indeed it depends on the
diligence and authority of Apronius. " You have virtue and
eloquence." How abundantly Apronius is praised by Timar
chides ! How splendidly ! Whom ought I to expect to be
otherwise than pleased with that man who is so highly ap
proved by Timarchides 1 " You have ample funds." It is
quite inevitable that what there was superfluous of the gain
you both made by the corn, must have gone chiefly to the
man by whose intervention you transacted that business.
" Get hold of the new clerks and officers.3 — Use every means
that offer, in concert with Lucius Vulteius, who has the
greatest influence." See now, what an opinion Timarchides
1 The Latin is accensus. " The accensus was a public officer who
attended 011 several of the Roman magistrates. He anciently preceded
the consul, who had not the fasces. ... It was his duty to summon the
people to the assemblies, and those who had law-suits to court ; and
also, by command of the consul and praetor, to proclaim the time, when
it was the third hour, the sixth, &c. Accensi also attended on the
governors of provinces, and were commonly freedmen of the magistrate
on whom they attended." — Smith, Diet. Ant. in voce.
2 The Latin is viator. " Viator was a servant who attended upon and
executed the commands of certain Roman magistrates, to whom he bore
the same relation that the lictor did to other magistrates. The name
viator was derived from the circumstance of their being chiefly employed
in messages, either to call upon senators to attend the meeting of the
senate, or to summon people to the comitia." — Smith, Diet. Ant. in voce.
3 The Latin is apparitor, which was " the general name for the public
servants of the magistrates at Rome,— accensi, carnifex, lictores, scribae,
&c. &c. They were called apparitores because they were at hand to
execute the commands of the magistrates. Their service or attendance
was called apparitio," — Smith, Diet. Ant. in voce.
3G4 CICERO S ORATIONS.
has of his own dishonest cunning, when he gives precepts of
dishonesty to Apronius ! Now these words, " Use every means
in your power " ' — Does not he seem to be drawing words out
of his master's house, suited to every sort of iniquity ? " I beg,
my brother, that you will trust your own little brother," your
comrade, indeed, in gain and robbery, your twin-brother and
image in worthlessness, dishonesty, and audacity.
LXVII. " You will be considered dear to the retinue."
What does this mean, " to the retinue ? " What has that to
do with it 1 Are you teaching Apronius ? What 1 had he
come into this retinue at your prompting, or of his own
accord ? " Whatever is needful for each man, that employ."
How great, do you suppose, must have been the impudence
of that man when in power, who even after his departure is
so shameless ? He says that everything can be done by
money : you must give, waste, and spend, if you wish to gain
your cause. Even this, that Timarchides should give this
advice to Apronius, is not so offensive to me, as the fact of his
also giving it to his patron, " When you press a request, all
men gain their objects." Yes, while Verres was prsetor, not
while Sacerdos was, or Peducseus, or this very Lucius Metel-
lus. "You know that Metellus is a wise man." But this is
really intolerable, that the abilities of that most excellent
man, Lucius Metellus, should be laughed at, and despised and
scorned by that runaway slave Timarchides. " If you have
Vulteius with you, everything will be mere child's play to
you." Here Timarchides is greatly mistaken, in thinking either
that Vulteius can be corrupted by money, or that Metellus
is going to discharge the duties of his praetorship according
to the will of any one man ; but he is mistaken by forming
his conjectures from his own experience. Because he saw
that, through his own intervention and that of others, many
men had been able to do whatever they pleased with Verres,
without meeting with any difficulty, he thought that there
were the same means of access to every one. You did
very easily whatever you wanted with Verres, and found it as
easy as child's play to do so, because you knew many of the
kinds of play in which he indulged.
1 The Latin is ccede, concide. " N. B. caede, concide, Cic. pro
verbially ; i.e. use every means in your power." — Kiddle's Lat. Diet, in v.
Contido.
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 365
" Metellus and Vulteius have been impressed with the idea
that you have ruined the cultivators of the soil." Who attri
buted the action to Apronius, when he had ruined any cul
tivator? or to Timarchides when he had taken money for
assigning a trial, or making a decree, or giving any order, or
remitting any thing "? or to Sextus the lictor, when he, as
executioner, had put an innocent man to death ? No one.
Every body at the time attributed these things to Verres ;
whom they desire now to see condemned. " People have
dinned into their ears, that you were a partner of the
praetor's." Do you not see how clear the matter both is and
was when even Timarchides is afraid of this ? Will you not
admit that we are not inventing this charge against you, but
that your freedman has been this long time seeking some
defence against this charge ? Your freedman and officer, one
most intimate, and indeed connected with you and your chil
dren in everything, writes to Apronius, that it is universally
pointed out to Metellus that Apronius had been your partner
in the tenths. " Make him see the dishonesty of the cultiva
tors : they shall suffer for it, if the gods will." What, in the
name of the immortal gods, is the meaning of that ? or on
what account can we say that such great and bitter hatred is
excited against the cultivators 1 What injury have the cul
tivators of the soil done to Verres, that even his freedman
and officer should attack them with so inimical a disposition
in these letters ?
LXVIII. And I would not, 0 judges, have read to you the
letter of this runaway slave, if I had not wished you to see
from it the precepts, and customs, and system of the whole
household. Do you see how he advises Apronius 1 by what
means and by what presents he may insinuate himself into
the intimacy of Metellus 1 how he may corrupt Vulteius 1
how he may win over with bribes the clerks and the chief
officer ? He teaches him what he has himself seen done. He
teaches a stranger the lessons which he has learnt at home
himself. But in this one thing he makes a mistake, that
he thinks there is the same road to every one's intimacy.
Although I am deservedly angry with Metellus, still I will
say this which is true. Apronius could not corrupt Metellus
with bribes, as he had corrupted Verres, nor with banquets,
nor with women, nor with debauched and profligate con-
366 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
versation, by which means he had, I will not say crept into
that man's friendship slowly and gradually, but had in a very
short time got possession of the whole man and his whole
retinue. But as for the retinue of Metellus, which he speaks
of, what was the use of his corrupting that, when no judges
were appointed out of it to judge the causes of the cultivators?
For as for what he writes, that the son of Metellus was a
mere boy, he is greatly mistaken. For there is not the same
access to the son of every praetor. 0 Timarchides, the son
cf Metellus is in the province, not a boy, but a virtuous and
modest youth, worthy of his rank and name. How that boy
of yours had behaved in the province, I would not say if I
thought it the fault of the boy, and not the fault of his
father. Did not you, though you knew yourself and your
own habits of life, 0 Verres, take with you your son, still
clad in the robes of a boy, into Sicily, so that even if nature
had separated the boy from his father's vices and from every
resemblance to his family, still habit and training might
prevent his degenerating from them ? Suppose there had
been in him the disposition of Caius Lselius, of Marcus Cato,
still what good could be expected or extracted out of one who
has lived in the licentious school of his father in such a way
that he has never seen one modest or sober banquet ? who
since he has grown up has lived in daily revels for three years
among immodest women and intemperate men 1 who has
never heard a word from his father by which he might become
more modest or more virtuous? who has never seen his father
do anything, which, if he had imitated, would not have laid
him under the most disgraceful imputation of all, that of
being considered like his father 1
LXIX. By which conduct you have done an injury, not
only to your son, but also to the republic. For you had be
gotten children, not for yourself alone, but also for your coun
try ; who might not only be a pleasure to you, but who
might some day or other be able to be of use to the republic.
You ought to have trained and educated them according to
the customs of your ancestors, and the established system of
the state ; not in your crimes, in your infamy. Were he the
able, and modest, and upright son of a lazy, and debauched,
and worthless father, then the republic would have had a
valuable present from you. Now you have given to the state
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 367
another Verres instead of yourself, if, indeed, he is not worse
(if that be possible) in this respect, — that you have turned
out such as you are without being bred up in the school of a
dissolute man, but only under a thief, and a go-between.1
What can we expect likely to turn out more complete than a
peraon who is by nature your son, by education your pupil,
by inclination your copyist 1 Whom, however, I, 0 judges,
would gladly see tiirn out a virtuous and gallant man. For
I am not influenced by his enmity, if, indeed, there is to
be enmity between him and me ; for if I am innocent and
like myself in everything, how will his enmity hurt me ?
And if, in any respect, I am like Verres, an enemy will
no more be wanting to me than he has been wanting to him.
In truth, 0 judges, the republic ought to be such, and shall
be such, being established by the impartiality of the tribunals,
that an enemy shall never be wanting to the guilty, and shall
never be able to injure the innocent. There is, therefore, no
cause why I should not be glad for that son of his to emerge
out of his father's vices and infamy. And although it may
be difficult, yet I do not know whether it be impossible ;
especially if (as is at present the case) the guardians placed
over him by his friends continue to watch him, since his
father is so indifferent to him, and so dissolute. But my
speech has now digressed more than I had intended from the
letter of Timarchides : and I said, that when that had been
read, I would end all I had to say on the charge connected
with the tenths ; from which you have clearly seen that
an incalculable amount of corn has been for these three years
diverted from the republic, and taken illegally from the
cultivators.
LXX. The next thing is, 0 judges, for me to explain to you
the charge about the purchase of corn, a theft very large in
amount, and exceedingly shameless. And I entreat you to
listen while I briefly lay before you my statements, being both
certain, few in number, and important. It was Verres's duty,
according to a decree of the senate, and according to the law
of Terentius and to the law of Cassius about corn, to purchase
1 The Latin is divisor, on which Kiddle says, " a decider, a distributor.
There were also divisores at the comitia, through whom the candidates
caused money to be distributed among the tribes ; this was a name
given by way of reproach, and not that of an office."
368 CICEHO'S ORATIONS.
corn in Sicily. There were two descriptions of purchase, — the
one the purchase of the second tenths, the other the purchase
of what was furnished in fair proportions by the different
cities. Of com derived from the second tenths the quantity
would be as much as had been derived from the first tenths;
of corn levied on the cities in this way there would be eight
hundred thousand modii. The price fixed for the corn col
lected as. the second tenths was three sesterces a modius ; for
that furnished in compliance with the levy, four sesterces.
Accordingly, for the corn furnished in compliance with the
levy, there was paid to Verres each year three million two
hundred thousand sesterces, which he was to pay to the culti
vators of the soil; and for the second tenths, about nine mil
lions of sesterces. And so, during the three years, there was
nearly thirty-six million six hundred thousand sesterces paid
to him for this purchase of corn in Sicily. This enormous
sum of money, given to you out of a poor and exhausted
treasury;, given to you for corn, — that is to say, for what was
necessary for the safety and life of the citizens; given to you
to be paid to the Sicilian cultivators of the soil, on whom the
republic was imposing such great burdens ; — this great sum,
I say, was so handled by you, that I can prove, if I choose,
that you appropriated the whole of this money, and that it
all went to your own house. In fact, you managed the whole
affair in such a way that this which I say can be proved to
the most impartial judge. But I will have a regard for my
own authority, I will recollect with what feelings, with what
intentions I have undertaken the advocacy of this public cause.
I will not deal with you in the spirit of an accuser; I will
invent nothing; I do not wish any one to take for proved,
while I am speaking, anything of which I myself do not
already feel thoroughly convinced. In the case of this public
money, 0 judges, there are three kinds of thefts. In the first
place, he put it out among the companies from which it had
been drawn at twenty-four per cent, intei-est ; l in the second
1 Towards the close of the republic the interest of money became due
on the first of every month ; therefore centesimal usurce, which seems to
have been reckoned the ordinary rate of interest at Rome, was a pay
ment of the hundredth part of the debt everymonth, or twelve hundredths,
or, as we say, twelve per cent, every year ; bime centesimse were twice as
much. Niebuhr is of opinion that the monthly rate of the centesimaj
was of foreign origin, and first adopted at Kome in the time of Sylla.
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 369
place, he paid actually nothing at all for corn to very many
of the cities ; lastly, if he did pay any city, he deducted as
large a sum as ever he chose. He paid no one whatever as
much as was due to him.
LXXI. And first I ask you this — you, to whom the
farmers of the revenue, according to the letters of Carpina-
tius, gave thanks. Was the public money, drawn from the
treasury, given out of the revenues of the Roman people if
purchase corn, was it a source of profit to you 1 Did it bring
you in twenty-four per cent, interest ? I dare say you will
deny it. For it is a disgraceful and dangerous confession to
make. And it is a thing very difficult for me to prove ; for
by what witnesses am I to prove it ? By the farmers of the
revenue ? They have been treated by him with great honour;
they will keep silence. By their letters 1 They have been
put out of the way by a resolution of the collectors. Which
way then shall I turn ? Shall I leave unmentioned so infa
mous a business, a crime of such audacity and such shameless-
ness, on account of a dearth of witnesses or of documentary
proofs ? I will not do so, 0 judges. I will call a witness.
Whom ? Lucius Vettius Chilo, a most honourable and accom
plished man of the equestrian order, who is such a friend of,
and so closely connected with Ven-es, that, even if he were not
an excellent man, still whatever he said against him would
seem to have great weight ; but who is so good a man that,
even if he were ever so great an enemy to him, yet his testi
mony ought to be believed. He is annoyed and waiting to
see what Vettius will say. He will say nothing because of this
present occasion ; nothing of his free will, nothing of which
we can think that he might have spoken either way. He
sent letters into Sicily to Carpinatius, when he was superin
tendent of the tax derived from the pasture lands, and manager
of that company of farmers, which letters I found at Syracuse,
in Carpinatius's house, among the portfolios of letters which
had been brought to him j and at Rome in the house of
Lucius Tullius, an intimate friend of yours, and another
manager of the company, in portfolios of letters which had
been received by him. And from these letters observe, I pray
you, the impudence of this man's usury.
The old yearly rate established by the Twelve Tables was unciariurn
fcenus, a little over eight per cent, a-year. See Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 525,
v. Interest.
B B
370 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
\The letters of Lucius Vettius to Publius Servilius, and to
Caius Antistius, managers of the company, are, read.~\
Vettius says that he will be with you, and will take notice
how you make up your accounts for the treasury ; so that, if
you do not restore to the people this money which has been
put out at interest, you shall restore it to the company. Can
we not establish what we assert by this witness, can we not
establish it by the letters of Publius Servilius and Caius Antis
tius, managers of the company, men of the highest reputation
and of the highest honour, and by the authority of the com
pany whose letters we are using ? or must we seek for some
thing on which we can rely more, for something more
important ?
LXXIT. Vettius, your most intimate friend, — Vettius, your
connexion, to whose sister you are married, — Vettius, the
brother of your wife, the brother of your quaestor, bears wit
ness to your most infamous theft, to your most evident
embezzlement ; for by what other name is a lending of the
public money at usury to be called 1 Eead what follows. He
says that your clerk, 0 Verres, was the drawer up of the bond
for this usury : the managers threaten him also in their let
ters ; in fact, it happened by chance that two managers
were with Vettius. They think it intolerable that twenty-four
per cent, should be taken from them, and they are right to
think so. For whoever did such a thing before 1 who ever
attempted to do such a thing, — who ever thought that such a
thing could be done, as for a magistrate to venture to take
money as interest from the farmers, though the senate had
often assisted the farmers by remitting the interests due from
them ? Certainly that man could have no hope of safety, if
the farmers — that is, the Roman knights, were the judges. He
ought to have less hope now, 0 judges, now that you have to
decide ; and so much the less, in proportion as it is more
honourable to be roused by the injuries of others than by
one's own. What reply do"ycm think of making to all this 1
Will you deny that you did it 1 Will you defend yourself on
the ground that it was lawful for you to do it ? How can
you deny it ? Can you deny it, to be convicted by the autho
rity of such important letters, by so many farmers appearing
as witnesses ? But how can you say it was lawful ? In truth,
if I were to prove that you, in your own province, had lent
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 371
on usury your own money, and not the money of the Roman
people, still you could not escape ; but when I prove that you
lent the public money, the money decreed to you to buy corn
with, and that you received interest from the farmers, will
you make any one believe that this was lawful ? a deed than
which not only others have never, but you yourself have never
done a more audacious or more infamous one. I cannot, in
truth, 0 judges, say that even that which appears to me to
be perfectly unprecedented, and about which I am going to
speak next — I mean, the fact of his having actually paid very
many cities nothing at all for their corn — was either more
audacious or more impudent ; the booty derived from this
act was perhaps greater, but the impudence of the other was
certainly not less. And since I have said enough about this
lending at interest, now, I pray you, give your attention to
the question of the embezzlement of the whole sum in many
instances.
LXXIII. There are many cities in Sicily, 0 judges, of
great splendour and of high reputation, and among the very
first of these is the city of Halesa. You will find no city
more faithful to its duties, more rich in wealth, more in
fluential in its authority. After that man had ordered it to
furnish every year sixty thousand modii of wheat, he took
money for the wheat, at the price which wheat bore in Sicily
at the time ; all the money which he thus received from the
public treasury, he kept for himself. I was amazed, 0 judges,
when a man of the greatest ability, of the highest wisdom,
and of the greatest influence, vEneas of Halesa, first stated
this to me at Halesa in the senate of Halesa ; a man to whom
the senate by public resolution had given a charge to return
me and my brother thanks, and at the same time to explain
to us the matters which concerned this trial. He proves to
me that this was his constant custom and system; that,
when the entire quantity of corn had been brought to him
under the name of tenths, then he was accustomed to exact
money from the cities, to object to the corn delivered, and as
for all the corn which he was forced to send to Rome, he sent
that quantity from his own profits, and from his own store of
corn. I demand the accounts, I inspect the documents, I see
that the people of Halesa, from whom sixty thousand modii
had been levied, had given none, that they had paid money
B B 2
372 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
to Volcatus, and to Timarchides the clerk. I find a case of
plunder of this kind, 0 judges, that the prsetor, -whose duty
it was to buy corn, did not buy it, but sell it; and that he
embezzles and appropriates the money which he ought to
have divided among the cities. It did not appear to me any
longer to be a theft, but a monster and a prodigy; to reject
the corn of the cities, and to approve of his own ; when he
had approved of his own, then to put a price on that corn, to
take from the cities what he had fixed, and to retain what he
had received from the Roman people.
LXXIV. How many degrees of offence in one single act of
fraud do you think will be enough, if I insist on them severally,
to bring the matter to a point where he can go no further ?
You reject the Sicilian corn; why? because you are sending
some yourself. Have you any Sicily of your own, which can sup
ply you corn of another sort ? When the senate decrees that corn
be bought in Sicily, or when the people order this, this, as I
imagine, is what they mean, that Sicilian corn is to be brought
from Sicily. When you reject all the corn of Sicily, do you
send corn to Rome from Egypt or from Syria 1 You reject
the corn of Halesa, of Cephalaedis, of Thermse, of Amestras,
of Tyndaris, of Herbita, and of many other cities. What has
happened then to cause the lands of these people to bear com
of such a sort while you were prsetor, as they never bore be
fore, so that it can neither be approved of by you, nor by
the Roman people; especially when the managers of the
different companies had taken corn, being the tenths, from
the same land, and of the same year, to Rome ? What has
happened that the corn which made part of the tenths was
approved, and that that which was bought, though out of the
same barn, was not approved of? Is there any doubt that
all that rejection of corn was contrived with the object of
raising money ? Be it so. You reject the corn of Halesa,
you have corn from another tribe which you approve of.
Buy that which pleases you; dismiss those whose corn you
have rejected. But from those whom you reject you exact such
a sum of money as may be equivalent to the quantity of corn
which you require of their city. Is there any doubt what
your object has been] I see from the public documents that
the people of HrUesa gave you fifteen sesterces for every me-
dimnus — I will prove from the accounts of the wealthiest of
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 373
the cultivators, that at the same time no one in Sicily sold
com at a higher price.
LXXV. What, then, is the reason for your rejecting, or
rather what madness is it to reject corn which comes from
that place from which the senate and the people of Eome
ordered it to be brought ? which comes from that very heap,
a part of which, under the name of tenths, you had actually
approved of? and besides, to exact money from the cities
for the purchase of corn, when you had already received it
from the treasury1? Did the Terentian law enjoin you to buy
corn from the Sicilians with the money of the Sicilians, or to
buy corn from the Sicilians with the money of the Roman,
people ? But now you see that all that money out of the
treasury, which ought to have been given to these cities for
corn, has been made profit of by that man. For you take
fifteen sesterces for a medimnus of wheat ; for that is the
value of a medimnus at that time. You keep eighteen . ses
terces; for that is the price of Sicilian corn, estimated accord
ing to law. What difference does it make whether you did
this, or whether you did not reject the corn, but,, after the
corn was approved and accepted, detained all the public money,
and paid none to any city whatever ? when the valuation of
the law is such that while it is tolerable to the Sicilians at
other times, it ought also to be pleasant to them during your
prajtorship. For a modius is valued by law at three .sesterces.
But, while you were prsetor, it was, as you boast in many
letters to your friends, valued at two sesterces. But suppose
it was three sesterces, since you exacted that price from the
cities for every modius. When, if you had paid the Sicilians
as much as the Roman people had ordered you to pay, it
might have been most pleasing to the cultivators, you not
only did not choose them to receive what they ought, but you
even compelled them to pay what was not due from them.
And that these things were done in this manner, you may
know, 0 judges, both from the public documents of the cities,
and from their public testimonies ; in all which you will find
nothing false, nothing invented as suited to the times. Every
thing which we speak of is entered in the returns and made
up in a regular manner, without any interpolations or irregu
larities being foisted into the people's accounts, but while they
are all made up with deliberation and accuracy. Read the
374 CICERO'S ORATIONS
accounts of the people of Halesa. To whom does he say that
money was paid 1 Speak, speak, I say, a little louder. " To
Volcatius, to Timarchides, to Msevius."
LXXVI. What is all this, 0 Verres ? have you not left
yourself even this argument in your defence, that they are the
managers of the companies who have been concerned in those
matters 1 that they are the managers who have rejected the
corn 1 that they are the managers who have settled the affair
with the cities for money 1 and that it is they also who have
taken money from you in the name of those cities ? and,
moreover, that they have bought corn for themselves ; and
that all these things do not at all concern you ? It Avould, in
truth, be an insufficient and a wretched defence for a prsetor
to say this, " I never touched the corn, I never saw it, I gave
the managers of the companies the power of approving or
rejecting it ; the managers extorted money from the cities,
but I paid to the managers the money which I ought to have
paid to the people." This is, as I have said, an insufficient,
or rather, a profligate defence against an accusation. But still,
even this one, if you were to wish to use it, you cannot use.
Volcatius, the delight of yourself and your friends, forbids you
to make mention of the manager ; and Timarchides, the prop
of your household, stops the mouth of your defence ; who,
as well as Volcatius, had money paid to him from the
cities. But now your clerk, with that golden ring of his,
which he procured out of these matters, will not allow
you to avail yourself of that argument. What then remains
for you, except to confess that you sent to Rome corn which
had been bought with the money of the Sicilians 1 that you
appropriated the public money to your own purposes 1 0
you habit of sinning, what delight you afford to the wicked
and the audacious, when chastisement is afar off, and when
impunity attends you ! This is not the first time that that
man lias been guilty of that sort of peculation, but now for
the first time is he convicted. We have seen money paid to
him from the treasury, while he was qucestor, for the expense
of a consular army ; we saw, a few months afterwards, both
army and consul stripped of everything. All that money lay
hid in that obscurity and darkness which at that time had
seized upon the whole republic. After that, he discharged the
duties of the quacstorship to which he succeeded under Dola-
IV. AGAINST VEBRES. 375
bella. He embezzled a vast sum of money ; but he mixed
up his accounts of that money with the confusion consequent
on the conviction of Dolabella. Immense sums of money
were entrusted to him when prsetor. You will not find him
a man to lick up these most infamous profits nervously and
gently ; he did not hesitate to swallow up at a gulp the whole
of the public money. That wicked covetousness, when it is
implanted in a man's nature, creeps on in such a way, when
the habit of sinning has emancipated itself from restraint, that
it is not able to put any limits to its audacity. At length it
is detected, and it is detected in affairs of great importance,
and of undoubted certainty. And it seems to me that, by
the interposition of the gods, this man too has become in
volved in such dishonesty, as not only to suffer punishment
for the crimes which he has lately committed, but also to be
overwhelmed with the vengeance due to the sins which he
committed against Carbo and against Dolabella.
LXXVII. There is in truth also another new feature in
this crime, 0 judges, which will remove all doubts as to his
criminality on the former charge respecting the tenths. For,
to say nothing of this fact, that very many of the cultivators
of the soil had not corn enough for the second tenths, and for
those eight thousand modii which they were bound to sell to
the Roman people, but that they bought them of your agent,
that is, of Apronius; which is a clear proof that you had
left the cultivators actually nothing: to pass over this, which
has been clearly set forth in many men's evidence, can any
thing be more certain than this, — that all the corn of Sicily,
and all the crops of the land liable to the payment of tenths,
were for three years in your power and in your barns 1 for
when you were demanding of the cities money for corn,
whence was the corn to be procured for you to send to
Rome, if you had it not all collected and locked up ?
Therefore, in the affair of that corn, the first profit of all
was that of the corn itself, which had been taken by vio
lence from the cultivators ; the next profit was because that
Tery corn which had been procured by you during your
three years, you sold not once, but twice; not for one payment,
but for two, though it was one and the same lot of corn; once
to the cities, for fifteen^ sesterces a medimnus, a second time
to the Roman people, from whom you got eighteen sesterces a
376 ICERO'S ORATIONS.
medimnus for the very same corn. But perhaps you approved
besides of the corn of the Centuripans, of the Agrigentines,
and of some others, and paid money to these nations. There
may be some cities in that number \vhose corn you were un
willing to object to. What then ? Was all the money that
was owed for corn paid to these cities ] Find me one — not
one people, but one cultivator. See, seek, look around, if
perchance there is any single man in that province in which
you were governor for three years, who does not wish you to
be ruined. Produce me one, I say, out of all those cultivators
who contributed money even to raise a statue to you, who
will say that everything that was due for corn was paid. I
pledge myself, 0 judges, that none will say so.
LXXVIII. Out of all the money which it was your duty
to pay to the cultivators, you were in the habit of making
deductions on certain pretexts ; first of all for the examina
tion, and for the difference in the exchanges ; secondly, for
some sealing money or other. All these names, 0 judges, do
not belong to any legal demand, but to the most infamous
robberies. For what difference of exchange can there be when
all use one kind of money ? And what is sealing money 1
How has this name got introduced into the accounts of a ma
gistrate 1 how came it to be connected with the public money ?
For the third description of deduction was such as if it were
not only lawful, but even proper ; and not only proper, but
absolutely necessary. Two fiftieths were deducted from the
entire sum in the name of the clerk. Who gave you leave to do
this ? — what law 1 what authority of the senate ? Moreover
where was the justice of your clerk taking such a sum,
whether it was taken from the property of the cultivators, or
from the revenues of the Roman people 1 For if that sum can
be deducted without injury to the cultivators of the soil, let the
Roman people have it, especially in the existing difficulties of
the treasury ; but if the Roman people intended it to be paid
to the cultivators, and if it is just that it should be, then shall
your officer, hired at small wages paid by the people, plunder
the property of the cultivators? And shall Hortensius excite
against me in this cause the whole body of clerks 1 and shall
he say that their interests are undermined by me, and their
rights opposed ? as if this were allowed to the clerks by any
precedent or by any right. Why should I go back to old
IV. AGAINST VEURES. 377
times 1 or why should I make mention of those clerks, who,
it is evident, were most upright and conscientious men 1 It
does not escape my ohservation, 0 judges, that old examples
are now listened to and considered as imaginary fables. I will
go only to the present wretched and profligate time. You, 0
Hortensius, have lately been quaestor. You can say what
your clerks did ; I say this of mine ; when, in that same
Sicily, I was paying the cities money for their corn, and had
with me two most economical men as clerks, Lucius Mamilius
and Lucius Sergius, then I say that not only these two fiftieths
were not deducted, but that not one single coin was deducted
from any one.
LXXIX. I would say that all the credit of this was to be
attributed to me, 0 judges, if they had ever asked this of me,
if they had ever thought of it. For why should a clerk make
this deduction, and not rather the muleteer who brought the
corn down 1 or the courier, by whose arrival they heard of its
coming and made the demand ? or the crier, who ordered
them to appear ? or the lictor and the slave of Venus, who
carried the money ? What part of the business or what sea
sonable assistance can a scrivener pretend to, that, I will not
say such high wages should be given him, but, that a division
of such a large sum should take place with him 1 Oh they
are a very honourable body of men ; — who denies it ? or
what has that to do with this business 1 But they are an
honourable body, because to their integrity are entrusted the
public accounts and the safety of the magistrates. Ask, there
fore, of those scriveners who are worthy of their body, masters
of households, virtuous and honourable men, what is the mean
ing of those fiftieths 1 In a moment you will all clearly see
that the whole affair is unprecedented and scandalous. Bring
me back to those scriveners, if you please ; do not get together
those men who when with a little money scraped together from
the presents of spendthrifts and the gratuities to actors, they
have bought themselves a place in some decury,1 think that
they have mounted from the first class of hissed buffoons into
the second class of the citizens. Those scriveners I will have as
arbitrators in this business between you and me, men who are
1 These decuries were colleges, or guilds, in which the different bodies
of inferior officers, librarians, clerks, lictors, accensi, nomenclators, &c.
were enrolled. See Professor Long's note on this passage.
378 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
indignant that those other fellows should be scriveners at all.
Although, when we see that there are many unfit men in that
order, an order which is held out as a reward for industry
and good conduct, are we to wonder that there are some base
men in that order also, a place in which any one can purchase
for money ?
LXXX. When you confess that your clerk, with your leave,
took thirteen hundred thousand sesterces of the public money,
do you think that you have any defence left ? that any one
can endure this ? Do you think that even any one of those
who are at this moment your own advocates can listen to this
with equanimity? Do you think that, in the same city in
which an action was brought against Caius Cato,1 a most illus
trious man, a man of consular rank, to recover a sum of
eighteen thousand sesterces ; in that same city it could be
permitted to your clerk to carry off at one swoop thirteen
hundred thousand sesterces? Here is where that golden ring
came from, with which you presented him in the public
assembly ; a gift which was an act of such extraordinary
impudence that it seemed novel to all the Sicilians, and to
me incredible. For our generals, after a defeat of the enemy,
after some splendid success, have often presented their secre
taries with golden rings in a public assembly ; but you, for
what exploit, for the defeat of what enemy did you dare to
summon an assembly for the purpose of making this present?
Nor did you only present your clerk with a ring, but you
also presented a man of great bravery, a man very unlike
yourself, Quintus Rubrius, a man of eminent virtue, and dig
nity, and riches, with a crown, with horse trappings, and a
chain ; and also Marcus Cossutius, a most conscientious and
honourable man, and Marcus Castritius, a man of the greatest
wealth, and ability, and influence. What was the meaning of
these presents made to these three Roman citizens ? Besides
that, you gave presents also to some of the most powerful and
noble of the Sicilians, who have not, as you hoped, been the
more slow to come forward, but have only come with more
dignity to give their evidence in this trial of yours. Where
did all these presents come from 1 from the spoils of what
1 Caius Cato was the grandson of Marcus Cato the censor, and nephew
of the younger Scipio At'ricanus ; he had been prastor of Sicily, but was*
convicted of having received eighteen thousand sesterces illegally.
IV. AGAINST VERKES. 379
enemy 1 gained in what victory 1 Of what booty or trophies
do they make a part 1 Is it because while you were prsetor, a
most beautiful fleet, the bulwark of Sicily, the defence of the
province, was burnt ' by the hands of pirates arriving in a few
light galleys ? or because the territory of Syracuse was laid
waste by the conflagrations of the banditti while you were
prsetor 1 or because the forum of the Syracusaus overflowed
with the blood of the captains 1 or because a piratical galley
sailed about in the harbour of Syracuse 1 I can find no reason
which I can imagine for your having fallen into such mad
ness, unless indeed your object was to prevent men from ever
forgetting the disasters of your administration. A clerk was
presented with a golden ring, and an assembly was convoked
to witness that presentation. What must have been your
face when you saw in the assembly those men out of whose
property that golden ring was provided for the present ; who
themselves had laid aside their golden rings, and had taken
them off from their children, in order that your clerk might have
the means to support your liberality and kindness ? More
over, what was the preface to this present 1 Was it the old
one used by the generals 1 — " Since in battle, in war, in mili
tary affairs, you . . . ." There never was even any mention
of such matters while you were prsetor. Was it this, " Since
you have never failed me in any act of covetousness, or in
any baseness, and since you have been concerned with me in
all my wicked actions, both during my lieutenancy, and my
prsetorship, and here in Sicily; on account of all these things,
since I have already made you rich, I now present you with
this golden ring 1 " This would have been the truth. For
that golden ring given by you does not prove he was a brave
man, but only a rich one. As we should judge that same
1 This has been mentioned before ; owing to the way in which Verrea
had disabled the fleet for his private gain, excusing towns from providing
ships who were inclined to pay for the relaxation, and discharging too
all the sailors who chose to buy their discharges, it was BO powerless
that a small squadron of pirates sailed into the harbour of Syracuse and
burnt it. Afterwards, a single pirate ship was taken, the officers of
which purchased their pardon of Verres, who, not daring to avow it, as
the people clamoured for their execution, brought on the scaffold the
captains of those Eoman ships which had been burnt, and others who
he feared might hereafter bear witness against him, with their heads
muffled up so that they could not be recognised, and had them executed
as the pirates.
380 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
ring, if given by some one else, to have evidence of virtue ;
when given by you, we consider it only an accompaniment to
money.
LXXXI. I have spoken, 0 judges, of the corn collected as
tenths ; I have spoken of that which was purchased ; the
last, the only remaining topic, is the valuation of the corn,
which ought to have weight with every one, both from the
vastness of the sum 'involved, and from the description of the
injustice done; and more than either, because against this
charge he is provided, not with some ingenious defence, but
with a most scandalous confession of it. For though it was
lawful for him, both by a decree of the senate, and also by
the laws, to take corn and lay it up in the granaries, and though
the senate had valued that corn at four sesterces for a modius
of wheat, two for one of barley, Verres, having first added to
the quantity of wheat, valued each modius of wheat with the
cultivators at three denarii.1 My charge is not this, 0 Hor-
tensius; do not you think about this; I know that many vir
tuous, and brave, and incorruptible men, have often valued,
both with the cultivators of the soil and with cities, the corn
which ought to have been taken and laid up in the granary,
and have taken money instead of corn ; I know what is
accustomed to be done ; I know what is lawful to be done ;
nothing which has been pi-eviously the custom of virtuous
men is found fault with in the conduct of Verres. This is
what I find fault with, that, when a modius of wheat in
Sicily cost two sesterces, as his letter which was sent to you
declares, or at most, three, as has also already been made
clear from all the evidence and all the accounts of the culti
vators, he exacted from the cultivators three denarii for every
modius .of wheat.
LXXXII. This is the charge ; I wish you to understand,
thatu my accusation turns not on the fact of his having valued
the corn, nor even of his having valued it at three denarii,
but on that of his having increased the quantity of corn, and
consequently the amount of the valuation. In truth this
valuation originated, 0 judges, at first not in the convenience
of the praetors or consuls, but in the advantage to the culti
vators and the cities. For originally, no one was so impudent
1 A denariug was about eightpence half-penny ; a sestertius only
a fraction over two-pence.
IV. AGAINST VERBES. 381
as to demand money when it was corn that was due ; cer
tainly this proceeded in the first instance from the cultivator
or from the city which was required to furnish corn ; when
they had either sold the corn, or wished to keep it, or were
not willing to carry it to that place where it was required
to be delivered, they begged as a kindness and a favour, that
they might be allowed, instead of the corn, to give the value
of the corn. From such a commencement as this, and from
the liberality and accommodating spirit of the magistrates
the custom of valuations was introduced. More covetous
magistrates succeeded ; who, in their avarice, devised not only
a plan for their own gain, but also a way of escape, and a plea
for their defence. They adopted a custom of always requir
ing corn to be delivered at the most remote and inconvenient
places, in order that, through the difficulty of carriage, the
cultivators might be more easily brought to the valuation
which they wished. In a case of this kind it is easier to form
one's opinion, than to make out a case for blame ; because
we can think the man who does this avaricious, but we cannot
easily make out a charge against him ; because it appears that
we must grant this to our magistrates, that they may have
power to receive the corn in any place they choose ; therefore
this is what many perhaps have done, not, however, so many
but that those whom we recollect, or whom we have heard of
as the most upright magistrates, have declined to do it.
LXXXIII. I ask of you now, 0 Hortensius, with which of
these classes you are going to compare the conduct of Verres ]
With those. I suppose, who, influenced by their own kindness,
have granted, as a favour and as a convenience to the cities,
permission to give money instead of corn. And so I suppose
the cultivators begged of him, that, as they could not sell a
modius of wheat for three sesterces, they may be allowed to
pay three denarii instead of each modius. Or, since you do
not dare to say this, will you take refuge in that assertion,
that, being influenced by the difficulty of carriage, they pre
ferred to give three denarii ? Of what carriage 1 Wishing
not to have to carry it from what place to what place ? from
Philomelium to Ephesus 1 I see what is the difference be
tween the price of corn at different places ; I see too how
many days' journey it is; I see that it is for the advantage of
the Philomelians rather to pay in Phrygia the price which
:}$-2 CICEROS ORATIONS.
corn bears in Ephesus, than to cany it to Ephesus, or to send
both money and agents to Ephesus to buy corn. But what
can there be like that in Sicily ? Enna is a completely in
land town. Compel (that is the utmost stretch of your autho
rity) the people of Enna, to deliver their corn at the water
side : they will take it to Phintia, or to Halesa, or to Catina,
places all very distant from one another, the same day that
you issue the order ; though there is not even need of any
carriage at all ; for all this profit of the valuation, 0 judges,
arises from the variety in the price of corn. For a magistrate
in a province can manage this, — namely, to receive it where it
is dearest. And therefore that is the way valuations are
managed in Asia and in Spain, and in those provinces in
which corn is not everywhere the same price. But in Sicily
what difference did it make to any one in what place he
delivered it 1 for he had not to carry it ; and wherever he was
ordered to carry it, there he might buy the same quantity of
corn which he sold at home. Wherefore, if, 0 Hortensius,
you wish to show that anything, in the matter of the valua
tion, was done by him like what has been done by others, you
must show that at any place in Sicily, while Verres was
prsetor, a modius of wheat ever cost three denarii.
LXXXIV. See what a defence I have opened to you ; how
unjust to our allies, how far removed from the good of the
republic, how utterly foreign to the intention and meaning of
the law. Do you, when I am prepared to deliver you corn
on my own farm, in my own city, — in the very place, in short,
in which you are, in which you live, in which you manage all
your business and conduct the affairs of the province, — do
you, I say, select for me some remote and desert corner of
the island 1 Do you bid me deliver it there, whither it is very
inconvenient to cany it ? where I cannot purchase it 1 It is
a shameful action, 0 judges, intolerable, permitted to no one
by law, but perhaps not yet punished in any instance. Still
this very thing, which I say ought not to be endured, I grant
to you, 0 Verres ; I make you a present of it. If in any
place of that province corn was at the price at which he
valued it, then I think that this charge ought not to have
any weight against him. But when it was fetching two ses
terces, or even three at the outside, in any district of the pro
vince which you choose to name, you exacted twelve. If
IV. AGAINST VEERES. 383
there cannot be any dispute between you and me either
about the price of corn, or about your valuation, why are you
sitting there 1 What are you waiting for 1 What will you
say in your defence 1 Does money appear to have been appro
priated by you contrary to the laws, contrary to the interests
of the republic, to the great injury of our allies 1 Or will
you say in your defence, that all this has been done lawfully,
regularly, in a manner advantageous to the republic, without
injury to any one 1 When the senate had given you money
out of the treasury, and had paid you money which you
were to pay the cultivators, a denarius for every modius,
what was it your duty to do? If you had wished to do
what Lucius Piso, surnamed Thrifty, who first made the law
about extortion, would have done, when you had bought the
corn at the regular price, you would have returned whatever
money there was over. If you wished to act as men desirous
of gaining popularity, or as kind-hearted men would, as the
senate had vahied the corn at more than the regular price,
you would have paid for it according to the valuation of the
senate, and not according to the market price. Or if, as
many do, a conduct which produces some profit indeed, but
still an honest and allowable one, you would not have
bought corn, since it was cheaper than they expected, but
you would have retained the money which the senate had
granted you for furnishing the granary.
LXXXV. But what is it that you have done? What
pretence has it, I will not say of justice, but even of any
ordinary roguery or impudence ? For, indeed, there is not
iisually anything which men, however dishonest, dare to do
openly in their magistracy, for which they cannot give, if not
a good excuse, still some excuse or other. But what sort
of conduct is this ? The prsetor came. Says he, I must buy
some corn of you. Very well. At a denarius for a modius.
I am much obliged to you ; you are very liberal, for I cannot
get three sesterces for it. But I don't want the corn, I will
take the money. I had hoped, says the cultivator, that
I should have touched the denarii ; but if you must have
"money, consider what is the price of corn now. I see it costs
two sesterces. What money, then, can be required of me for
you, when the senate has allowed you four sesterces ? Listen,
now, to what he demands. And I entreat you, 0 judges,
384 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
remark at the same time the equity of the prsetor : " The
four sesterces which the senate has voted me, and has paid
me out of the treasury, those I shall keep, and shall transfer
out of the public chest into my strong box." What comes
next ? What ? " For each modius which I require of you,
do you give me eight sesterces." On what account?
" What do you ask me on what account for ? It is not
- so much on what account that we need think, as of how
advantageous it will be, — how great a booty I shall get."
Speak, speak, says the cultivator, a little plainer. The
senate desires that you should pay me money, — that I should
deliver corn to you. Will you retain that money which the
senate intended should be paid to me, and take two sesterces
a-modius from me, to whom you ought to pay a denarius for
each modius? And then will you call this plunder and
robbery granary-money 1 This one injury, — this single dis
tress, was wanting to the cultivators under your prsetorship,
to complete the ruin of the remainder of their fortunes.
For what remaining injury could be done to the man who,
owing to this injury, was forced not only to lose all his corn,
but even to sell all his tools and stock ? He had no way to
turn. From what produce could he find the money to pay
you 1 Under the name of tenths, as much had been taken
from him as the caprice of Apronius chose ; for the second
tenths and for the corn that had been purchased either
nothing had been paid, or only so much as the clerk had left
behind, or perhaps it was even taken for nothing, as you have
had proved to you.
LXXXVI. Is money also to be extorted from the cul
tivators? How? By what right ? by what precedent ? For
when the crops of the cultivator were can-ied off and plun
dered with every kind of injustice, the cultivator appeared to
lose what he had himself raised with his plough, for which he
had toiled, what his land and his cornfields had produced.
But amid this terrible ill-treatment, there was still this
wretched consolation, — that he seemed only to be losing
what, under another prater, he could get again out of the
same land. But now it is necessary for the cultivator — to
give money, which he does not get out of the land — to sell
his oxen, and his plough itself, and all his tools. For you
are not to think this, " The man has also possessions in ready
IV. AGAINST YERRES. 385
money ; he has also possessions inland, near the city." For
when a burden is imposed on a cultivator of the soil, it is
not the means and ability of the man that is to be considered,
whether he has any property besides ; but the quality and
description of his land, what that can endure, what that
can suffer, what that can and ought to produce. Although
those men have been drained and ruined by Verres in every
possible manner, still you ought to decide what contribution
you consider the cultivator ought to render to the republic
on account of his land, and what charges he can support.
You impose the payment of tenths on them. They endure
£hat. A second tenth. You think they must be subservient
to your necessities, — that they must, besides that, supply you
with more if you choose to purchase it. They will so supply
you if you choose. How severe all this is, and how little,
after all these deductions are made, can be left of clear profit
for the owners, I think you, from your own farming expe
rience, can guess. Add, now, to all this, the edicts, the
regulations, the injuries of Verres, — add the reign and the
rapine of Apronius, and the slaves of Apronius, in the land
subject to the payment of tenths. Although I pass over all this ;
I am speaking of the granaiy. Is it your intention that the
Sicilians should give corn to our magistrates for their grana
ries for nothing ? What can be more scandalous, what can be
more iniquitous than that 1 And yet, know you that this
would have seemed to the cultivators a thing to be wished
for, to be begged for, while that man was prsetor.
LXXXVI1. Sositenus is a citizen of Entella ; a man of the
greatest prudence, and of the noblest birth in his city. You
have heard what he said when he was sent by the public
authority to this trial as a deputy, together with Artemon
and Meniscus, men of the highest character. He, when in the
senate at Entella he was discussing with me the injustice of
Verres, said this: that, if the question of the granaries and
of the valuation were conceded, the Sicilians were willing to
promise the senate corn for the granary without payment, so
that we need not for the future vote such large sums to our
magistrates. I am sure that you clearly perceive how advan
tageous this would be for the Sicilians, — not because of the
justice of such a condition, but in the way of choosing the
least of two evils ; for the man who had given Verres a thou-
c c
386 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
sand modii for the granary as his share of the contribution
required, -would have given two, or, at most, three thousand
sesterces, but the same man has now been compelled for the
same quantity of corn to give eight thousand sesterces. A
cultivator could not stand this for three years, at least not out
of his own produce. He must inevitably have sold his stock.
But if the land can endure this contribution and this tribute,
— that is to say, if Sicily can bear and support it, let it pay
it to the Roman people rather than to our magistrates. It is
a great sum, a great and splendid revenue. If you can ob
tain it without damage to the province, without injury to cm-
allies, I do not object at all. Let as much be given to the
magistrates for their granary as has always been given. What
Verres demands besides, that, if they cannot provide it, let
them refuse. If they can provide it, let it be the revenue of
the Roman people rather than the plunder of the prsetor.
In the next place, why is that valuation established for only
one description of corn? If it is just and endurable, then
Sicily owes the Roman people tenths ; let it give three denarii
for each single modius of wheat ; let it keep the corn itself.
Money has been paid to you, 0 Verres, — one sum with which
you were to buy corn for the granary, the other with which
you were to buy corn from the cities to send to Rome. You
keep at your own house the money which has been given to
you; and besides that, you receive a vast sum in your own
name. Do the same with respect to that corn which belongs
to the Roman people ; exact money from the cities according
to the same valuation, and give back what you have received,
— then the treasury of the Roman people will be better filled
than it ever has been. But Sicily could not endure that in
the case of the public corn; she did indeed bear it in the
case of my own. Just as if that valuation was more just
when your advantage was concerned, than when that of the
Roman people was ; or, as if the conduct which I speak of,
and that which you adopted, differed only in the description
of the injury, and not in the magnitude of the sum involved.
But that granary they can by no means bear, not even if
everything else be remitted; not even if they were for ever
hereafter delivered from all the injuries and distresses which
they have suffered while you were prsetor, still they say that
they could not by any possibility support that granary and
that valuation.
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 387
LXXXVIII. Sophocles of Agrigentum, a most eloquent
man, adorned with every sort of learning and with every vir
tue, is said to have spoken lately before Cnseus Pompeius,
when he was consul, on behalf of all Sicily, concerning the
miseries of the cultivators, with great earnestness and great
variety of arguments, and to have lamented their condition
to him. And of all the things which he mentioned, this ap
peared the most scandalous to those who were present, (for
the matter was discussed in the presence of a numerous as
sembly,) that, in the very matter in which the senate had
dealt most honestly and most kindly with the cultivators, in
that the prsetor should plunder, and the cultivators be ruined ;
and that should not only be done, but done in such a manner
as if it were lawful and permitted.
What says Horteusius to this ? that the charge is false ?
He will never say this. — That no great sum was gained by this
method ? He will not even say that. — That no injury was done
to Sicilians and the cultivators 1 How can he say that? — What
then, will he say, — That it was done by other men. What is
the meaning of this ? Is it a defence against the charge, or
company in banishment that he is seeking for ] Will you in
this republic, in this time of unchecked caprice, and (as up to
this time the course of judicial proceedings has proved) licen
tiousness on the part of men, will you defend that which is
found fault with, and affirm that it has been done properly ;
not by reference to right, nor to equity, nor to law, nor because
it was expedient, nor because it was allowed, but because it was
some one else who did it 1 Other men, too, have done other
things, and plenty of them ; why in. this charge alone do you
use this sort of defence ? There are some things in you so ex
traordinary, that they cannot be said of, or meet in the charac
ter of, any other man ; there are some things which you have
in common with many men. Therefore, to say nothing of your
acts of peculation, or of your taking money for the appoint
ment of judges, and other things of that sort which, perhaps,
other men also may have committed ; will you defend your
self, also, from the charge which I bring against you as the most
serious one of all — the charge, namely, of having taken money
to influence yoiir legal decisions, by the same argument, that
others have done so too ? Even if I were to admit the asser
tion, still I should not admit it as any defence. For it would
cc2
388 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
be better that by your condemnation there should be more
limited room for defending dishonesty left to others, than that,
owing to your acquittal, others should be thought to have
legitimately done what they have done with the greatest
audacity.
LXXXIX. All the provinces are mourning ; all the nations
that are free are complaining ; every kingdom is expostulating
with us about our covetousness and our injustice ; there is
now no place on this side of the ocean, none so distant, none
so out of the way, that, in these latter times, the lust and ini
quity of our citizens has not reached it. The Eoman people
is now no longer able to bear (I have not to say the violence,
the arms, and the war, but) the mourning, the tears, and the
complaints, of all foreign nations. In a case of this sort, in
speaking of customs of this sort, if he who is brought before
the tribunal, when he is detected in evident crimes, says that
others have also done the same, he will not want examples ;
but the republic will want safety, if, by the precedents of
wicked men, wicked men are to be delivered from trial and
from danger. Do you approve of the manners of men at pre
sent 1 Do you approve of men's behaving themselves in
magistracies as they do 1 Do you approve, finally, of our allies
being treated as you see that they have been treated all this
time 1 Why am I forced to take all this trouble? Why are
you all sitting here 1 Why do you not rise up and depart
before I have got halfway through my speech 1 Do you wish
to lay open at all the audacity and licentiousness of these
men \ Give up doubting whether it is more useful, because
there are so many wicked men, to spare one, or by the punish
ment of one wicked man, to check the wickedness of many. Al
though, what are those numerous instances of wicked men ?
For when in a cause of such importance, when in the case of a
charge of such gravity, the defendant has begun to say that
anything has frequently been done, those who hear him are
expecting precedents drawn from ancient tradition, from old
records and old documents, full of dignity, full of antiquity.
XC. For such instances usually have both a great deal of
authority in proving any point, and are very pleasant to hear
cited. Will you speak to me of the Africani, and the Catos,
and the Lyelii, and will you say that they have done the same
thing? Then, even though the act might not please me, still
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 389
I should not be able to fight against the authority of those
men. But, since you will not be able to produce them, will
you bring forward these moderns, Quintus Catulus the
father, Caius Marcius, Quintus Scaevola, Marcus Scaurus,
Quintus Metellus ? who have all governed provinces, and who
have all levied corn on the ground of filling the granary. The
authority of the men is great, so great as to be able to remove
all suspicion of wrong-doing. But you have not, even out of
these men who have lived more recently, one precedent of
that authority. Whither, then, or to what examples will you
bring me back ? Will you lead me away from those men who
have spent their lives in the service of the republic at a time
when manners were very strict, and when the opinion of men
was considered of great weight, and when the courts of justice
were severe, to the existing caprice and licentiousness of men
of the present age ? And do you seek precedents for your
defence among those men, as a warning to whom the Roman
people have decided that they are in need of some severe
examples 1 I do not, indeed, altogether condemn the manners
of the present time, as long as we follow those examples which
the Roman people approves of ; not those which it condemns.
I will not look around me, I will not go out of doors to seek
for any one, while we have as judges those chiefs of the city,
Publius Servilius and Quintus Catulus, who are men of such
authority, and distinguished for such exploits, that they may
be classed in that number of ancient and most illustrious men
of whom I have previously spoken. We are seeking examples,
and those not ancient ones. Very lately each of them had
an army. Ask, 0 Hortensius, since you are fond of modern
instances, what they did. Will you not ? Quintus Catulus
used corn, but he exacted no money. Publius Servilius,
though he commanded an army for five years, and by that
means might have made an incalculable sum of money, thought
that nothing was lawful for himself which he had not seen his
father and his grandfather, Quintus Metellus, do. Shall Caius
Verres be found, who will say that everything is lawful for
him which is profitable 1 Will he allege in his defence that he
has done in accordance with the example set by others, what
none, except wicked men, ever have done ? Oh, but it has
been often done in Sicily.
XCI. What is that condition in which Sicily is 1 Why is
390 CICEKO'S ORATIONS.
the law of injustice especially defined by a reference to the
usages prevalent in that land which, on account of its anti
quity as our ally, its fidelity, and its nearness to us, ought to
enjoy the best laws of all ? However, in Sicily itse-lf, (I will
not go abroad to look for examples,) I will take examples out
< >f the very bench of judges before me. Caius Marcellus, I
<-all you as a witness. You governed the province of Sicily
when you were proconsul. Under your command were any
sums of money extorted, under the name of money for the
granary 1 I do not give you any credit for this. There are
other exploits, other designs of yours worthy of the highest
praise, measures by which you recovered and set up again an
afflicted and ruined province. For even Lepidus whom you
succeeded had not committed this fraud about the granary.
What precedents then have you in Sicily affecting this charge
about the granary, if you cannot defend yourself from the
accusation by quoting any action even of Lepidus, much less
any action of Marcellus ? Are you going to bring me back
to the valuation of the corn, and the exaction of money by
Marcus Antonius ? Just so, says he ; to the valuation of
Marcus Antonius. For this is what he seemed to mean by
his signs and nods. Out of all the praetors of the Roman
people then, and consuls, and generals, have you selected
Marcus Antonius, and even the most infamous action done by
him, for your imitation 1 And here is it difficult forme to
say, or for the judges to think, that in that unlimited autho
rity Marcus Antonius behaved himself in such a manner, that
it is by far more injurious to Verrcs to say that as he, in a
most infamous transaction, wished to imitate Antonius, than
if he were able to allege in his defence, that he had never in
his whole life done anything like Marcus Antonius ? Men in
trials ai-e accustomed to allege, in making a defence against an
accusation, not what any one did, but what he did that was
good. In the middle of his course of injustice and covetous-
ness death overtook Antony, while he was still both doing
and planning many things contrary to the safety of the allies,
many things contrary to the advantage of our provinces. Will
you defend the audacity of Verres by the example of Anto
nius, as if the senate and people of Home approved of all
his actions and designs ?
XGII. But Sacerdos did the same. You name an upright
IV. AGAINST VERUES. 391
man, and one endued with the greatest wisdom ; but he can
only be thought to have done the same thing, if he did it
with the same intention. For the mere fact of the valuation
has never been found fault with by me ; but the equity of it
depends on the advantage to, and willingness of the culti
vator. No valuation can be found fault with, which is not
only not disadvantageous, but which is even pleasing to the
cultivator. Sacerdos, when he came into the province, com
manded corn to be provided for the granary. As before the
new harvest came in a modius of wheat was five denarii, the
cities begged of him. to have a valuation. The valuation was
somewhat lower than the actual market price, for he valued
it at three denarii. You see that the same fact of a valuation,
through the dissimilarity of the occasion, was a cause of
praise in his instance, of accusation in yours, t In his instance
it was a kindness, in yours an injury. The same year Anto-
nius valued corn at three denarii, after the harvest, in a season
of exceeding cheapness, when the cultivators would rather
give the corn for nothing, and he said that he had valued it
at the same price as Sacerdos ; and he spoke truly, but yet,
by the same valuation the one had relieved the cultivators,
the other had ruined them. And if it were not the case that
the whole value of corn must be estimated by the season, and
the market price, not by the abundance, nor by the total
amount, these modii and a half of yours, 0 Hortensius,
would never have been so agreeable ; in distributing which
to the Roman people, for every head, small as the quantity
was, you did an action which was most agreeable to all men ;
for the clearness of corn caused that, which seemed a small
thing in reality, to appear at that time a great one. If you had
given such a largess to the Roman people in a time of cheap
ness, your kindness would have been derided and despised.
XCIII. Do not, therefore, say that Verres did the same as
Sacerdos had done, since he did not do it on the same
occasion, nor when wheat was at a similar price ; say rather,
since you have a competent authority to quote, that he did
for three years what Antouius did on his arrival, and with
reference to scarcely a month's provisions, and defend his
innocence by the act and authority of Marcus Antonius. For
what will you say of Sextus Peducseus, a most brave and
honest man 1 What cultivator ever complained of him ? or who
392 CICEROS ORATIONS.
did not think that his prsetorship was the most impartial and
the most active one that has ever been known up to this time ?
He governed the province for two years, when one year was
a year of cheapness, the other a year of the greatest clearness.
Did any cultivator either give him money in the cheap season,
or in the dear season complain of the valuation of his corn ?
Oh, but provisions were very abundant that dear season.
I believe they were ; that is not a new thing nor a blameable
one. We very lately saw Caius Sentius, a man of old-fashioned
and extraordinary incorruptibility, on account of the dearness
of food which existed in Macedonia, make a great deal of
money by furnishing provisions. So that I do not grudge
you your profits, if any have come to you legally ; I com
plain of your injustice ; I impeach your dishonesty; I call
your avarice into court, and arraign it before this tribunal.
But if you wish to excite a suspicion that this charge
belongs to more men and more provinces than one, I will not
be afraid of that defence of yours, but I will profess my
self the defender of all the provinces. In truth I say this,
and I say it with a loud voice, " Wherever this has been done,
it has been done wickedly ; whoever has done it is deserving
of punishment."
XCIV. For, in the name of the immortal gods, see, 0
judges, look forward with your mind's eye at what will be the
result. Many men have exacted large sums from unwilling
cities, and from unwilling cultivators, in this way, under
pretence of filling the granaiy. (I have no idea of any one
person having done so except him, but I grant you this, and
I admit that many have.) In the case of this man you see
the matter brought before a court of justice ; what can you
do 1 can you, when you are judges in a case of embezzlement
which is brought before you, overlook the misappropriation of
so large a sum ? or can you, though the law was made for the
sake of the allies, turn a -deaf ear to the complaints of the
allies 1 However, I give up this point too to you. Disregard
what is past, if you please ; but do not destroy their hopes
for the future, and ruin all the provinces ; guard against
this, — against opening, by your authority, a visible and broad
way for avarice, which up to this time has been in the habit
of advancing by secret and narrow paths ; for if you approve
of this, and if you decide that it is lawful for money to be
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 393
taken on that pretext, at all events there is no one except the
most foolish of men who will not for the future do what as
yet no one except the most dishonest of men ever has done ;
they are dishonest men who exact money contrary to the laws,
they are fools who omit to do what it has been decided that
they may do. In the next place, see, 0 judges, what a bound
less licence for plundering people of money you will be
giving to men. If the man who exacts three denarii is
acquitted, some one else will exact four, five, presently ten, or
even twenty. What reproof will he meet with 1 At what
degree of injury will the severity of the judge first begin to
make a stand ? How many denarii will it be that will be
quite intolerable ? and at what point will the iniquity and
dishonesty of the valuation be first arraigned 1 For it is not
the amount, but the description of valuation that will be
approved of by you. Nor can you decide in this manner,
that it is lawful for a valuation to be made when the price
fixed is three denarii, but not lawful when the price fixed is
ten ; for when a departure is once made from the standard of
the market price, and when the affair is once so changed that
it is not the advantage of the cultivators which is the rule,
but the will of the prsetor, then the manner of valuing no
longer depends on law and duty, but on the caprice and
avarice of men.
XCV. Wherefore, if in giving your decisions you once pass
over the boundary of equity and law, know that you impose
on those who come after no limit to dishonesty and avarice in
valuing. See, therefore, how many things are required of you
at once. Acquit the man who confesses that he has taken
immense sums, doing at the same time the greatest injury to
our allies. That is not enough. There are also many others
who have done the same thing. Acquit them also, if there
are any ; so as to release as many rogues as possible by one
decision. Even that is not enough. Cause that it may be
lawful to those who come after them to do the same thing.
It shall be lawful. Even this is too little. Allow it to be
lawful for every one to value corn at whatever price he pleases.
He may so value it. You see now, in truth, 0 judges, that,
if this valuation be approved of by you, there will be no limit
hereafter to any man's avarice, nor any punishment for dis
honesty. What, therefore, 0 Hortensius, are you about?
394: CICERO'S ORATIONS.
You are the consul elect, you have had a province allotted to
you. When you speak on the subject of the valuation of corn,
we shall listen to you as if you were avowing that you will do
what you defend as having been legitimately done by Verres ;
and as if you were very eager that that should be lawful for
you which you say was lawful for him. But if that is to be
lawful, there is nothing which you can imagine any one likely
to do hereafter, in consequence of which he can possibly be
condemned for extortion. For whatever sum of money any
one covets, that amount it will be lawful for him to acquire,
under the plea of the granary, and by means of the highness
of the valuation.
XCVI. But there is a thing, which, even if Hortensius does
not say it openly in defending Verres, he still does say in such
a manner that you may suspect and think that this matter
concerns the advantage of the senators ; that it concerns the
advantage of those who are judges, and who think that they
will some day or other be in the provinces themselves as go
vernors or as lieutenants. But you must think that we have
splendid judges, if you think them likely to show indulgence
to the faults of others, in order the more easily to be allowed
to commit faults themselves. Do we then wish the Eoman
people, do we wish the provinces, and our allies, and foreign
nations to think that, if senators are the judges, this particular
manner of extorting immense sums of money with the greatest
injustice will never be in any way chastised 1 But if that be
the case, what can we say against that praetor who every day
occupies the senate, who insists upon it that the republic can
not prosper, if the office of judge is not restored to the eques
trian order 1 But if he begins to agitate this one point, that
there is one description of extortion, common to all the sena
tors, and now almost legalized in the case of that order, by
which immense sums are taken from the allies with the greatest
injustice ; and that this cannot possibly be repressed by tri
bunals of senators, but that, while the equestrian order fur
nished the senators, it never was committed ; who, then, can
resist him 2 Who Avill be so desirous of gratifying you, who
will be such a partisan of your order, as to be able to oppose
the transference of the appointment of judges to that body ?
XCVII. And I wish he were able to make a defence to this
charge by any argument, however false, as long as it is natural
IV. AGAINST VERRES. 395
and customary. You could then decide with less danger to
yourselves, with less danger to all the provinces. Did he deny
that he had adopted this valuation 1 You would appear to
have believed the man in that statement, not to have approved
of his action. He cannot possibly deny it. It is proved by
all Sicily. Out of all that numerous band of cultivators, there
is not one from whom money has not been exacted on the
plea of the granary. I wish he were able to say even this,
that that affair does not concern him ; that the whole business
relating to corn was managed by the quaestors. Even that
he cannot say, because his own letters are read which were
sent to the cities, written on the subject of the three denarii.
What then is his defence ? "I have done what you accuse me
of; I have extorted immense sums on the plea of the granary;
but it was lawful for me to do so, and it will be lawful for
you if you take care." A dangerous thing for the provinces
for any classes of injury to be established by judicial decision!
a dangerous thing for our order, for the Roman people to
think that these men, who themselves are subject to the laws,
cannot defend the laws with strictness when they are judges.
And while that man was prsetor, 0 judges, there was not only
no limit to his valuing corn, but there was none either to
his demands of corn. Nor did he command that only to be
supplied that was due, but as much as was advantageous for
himself. I will put before you the sum total of all the corn
commanded to be furnished for the granary, as collected out
of the public documents, and the testimonies of the cities.
You will find, 0 judges, that man commanded the cities to
supply five times as much as it was lawful for him to take
for the granary. What can be added to this impudence, if
he both valued it at such a price that men could not endure
it, and also commanded so much more to be supplied than
was permitted to him by the laws to require 1
Wherefore, now that you have heard the whole business of
the corn, 0 judges, you can easily see that Sicily, that most
productive and most desirable province, has been lost to the
Roman people, unless you recover it by your condemnation
of that man. For what is Sicily, if you take away the cul
tivation of its land, and if you extinguish the multitude and
the very name of the cultivators of the soil ? For what can
there be left of disaster which has not come to those unhappy
396 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
cultivators, with every circumstance of injury and insult 1
They were liable, indeed, to pay tenths, but they have scarcely
had a tenth left for themselves. When money has been due
to them, it has not been paid ; though the senate intended
them to supply corn for the granary according to a very
equitable valuation, they have been compelled to sell even
the tools with which they cultivate their lands.
XCVITI. I have already said, 0 judges, that even if you
remove all these injuries, still that the occupation of culti
vating land is maintained owing to the hopes and a certain
sort of pleasure which it gives, rather than because of the profit
and emolument arising from it. In truth every year constant
labour and constant expense is incurred in the hope of a result
which is casual and uncertain. Moreover, the crop does not
command a high price, except in a disastrous harvest. But
if there has been a great abundance of crops gathered, then
there is cheapness in selling them. So that you may see that
the corn must be badly sold if it is got in well, or else that
the crop must be bad if you get a good price for it. And
the whole business of agriculture is such, that it is regulated
not by reason or by industry, but by those most uncertain
things, — the weather and the winds. When from agriculture
one tenth is extracted by law and on fair terms, — when a
second is levied by a new regulation, on account of the
necessity of procuring a sufficient supply for ourselves, —
when, besides, corn is purchased every year by public autho
rity, — and when, after all that, more still is ordered by
magistrates and lieutenants to be supplied for the granary, —
what, or how much is there after all this of his own crop
which the cultivator or owner can have at his own disposal, for
his own profit 1 And if all this is endured, — if by their care,
and expense, and labour, they consult your advantage and
that of the Roman people rather than themselves and their own
profit, — still, ought they also to bear these new edicts and
commands of the praetors, and the imperiousness of Apronius,
and the robberies and rapine of the slaves of Venus 1 Ought
they also to supply corn which ought to be purchased of
them, without getting any payment for it 1 Ought they
also, though they are willing to supply corn for the granary
without payment, to be forced to pay large sums too 1 Ought
they also to endure all these injuries and all these losses,
V. AGAINST VERRES. 397
accompanied with the greatest insult and contumely? There
fore, 0 judges, those things -which they have not at all been
able to bear, they have not borne. You know that over the
whole of Sicily the allotments of land are deserted and
abandoned by their owners. Nor is there anything else to be
gained by this trial, except that our most ancient and faith
ful allies, the Sicilians, Roman settlers, and the cultivators
of the soil, owing to your strictness and your care, may return
to their farms and to their homes under my guidance and
through my instrumentality.
THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE SECOND PLEADING IN THE
PROSECUTION OF VERRES.
ABOUT THE STATUES.
THE ARGUMENT.
The subject of this oration is the manner in which Verres had plun
dered not only private individuals, but even some temples, of valuable
statues, and other works of art. Among the'instances given some of the
most prominent are the plunder of Heius, a Messanian ; of Philarchus,.of
Centuripa; of several other private citizens; of Antiochus, the king;
and of the temples of Diana, Mercury, and Ceres. A French trans
lator in commenting on this oration says, with reference to the
slighting way in which Cicero speaks of the works of art thus stolen,
— " The Romans struggled for some time against the seductive power
of the arts of Greece, to which for many ages they were strangers.
At first they really did despise them ; afterwards they affected to
despise them ; but at last they were forced to bow the head beneath
the brilliant yoke of luxury ; and Greece, industrious, learned, and
polite, subdued by the admiration which it extorted, the ignorant,
unlettered, and rude barbarians who had conquered her by force.
Faithful to the ancient maxims of the republic, Cicero in this oration
speaks only with a sort of disdain of the arts and works of the most
famous artists. He even pretends sometimes not to be too well
acquainted with the names of the most celebrated statuaries; he often
repeats, and with a kind of affectation, that he knows very little of
painting or sculpture ; and rather prides himself, as one may say, on
his ignorance. He seems to regard a taste for art as unworthy of the
Romans, and the finest cliffs d'c&uvre as children's toys, fit to amuse
the trifling and frivolous minds of the Greeks, whose name he usually
398 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
expresses by a contemptuous diminutive, (Grocculi,) but little calcu
lated to fix the attention, or attract the esteem or wishes of a Roman.
mind.
******
In general there runs through these orations a tone more calculated
to render Verres ridiculous, than to make one feel how much there
was in all his attempts which was odious and horrible. The orator
even permitted himself some pleasantries, for which his taste has
been, perhaps too severely, called in question. Cicero had no dislike
to puns, and has played a good deal on the name of Verres, which
means a boar. He was too eager to acquire the reputation of a wit.
It is true that the person of Yerres was sufficiently inviting as a sub
ject for ridicule. He was one of those gross men overloaded with fat,
in whom the bulk of body appears to stifle all delicacy of moral
feeling. As he had tried to carry off a statue of Hercules which his
people could with difficulty move upon its pedestal, Cicero calls this
the thirteenth of the labours of Hercules. And playing continually
on the name of Verres, he compares him to the boar of Erymanthus.
At another time he calls him the dragnet of Sicily, because the name
Verres has some resemblance to the word everriculum, which signi
fies a dragnet."
Hortensius endeavoured to defend Verres from the charge of having
stolen these statues, &c. of which he admits that he had become the
possessor, by contending that he had bought them. But it was con
trary to the laws for a magistrate to purchase any such articles in his
province ; and Cicero shows also that the prices alleged to have been
given are so wholly disproportionate to their value, that it is ridiculous
to assert that the things had been purchased and not taken by force.
I. I COME now to what Verres himself calls his passion ;
what his friends call his disease, his madness ; what the Sici
lians call his rapine ; what I am to call it, I know not. I will
state the whole affair to you, and do you consider it according
to its own importance and not by the importance of its name.
First of all, 0 judges, suffer me to make you acquainted with
the description of this conduct of his ; and then, perhaps, you
will not be very much puzzled to know by what name to call
it. I say that in all Sicily, in all that wealthy and ancient
province, that in that number of towns and families of such
exceeding riches, there was no silver vessel, no Corinthian or
Delian plate, no jewel or pearl, nothing made of gold or
ivory, no statue of marble or brass or ivory, no picture
whether painted or embroidered, that he did not seek out,
that he did not inspect, that, if he liked it, he did not take
away. I seem to be making a very extensive charge ; listen
now to the manner in which I make it. For I am not
embracing everything in one charge for the sake of making
V. AGAINST VERRES. 399
an impression, or of exaggerating his guilt. When I say that
he left nothing whatever of the sort in the whole province,
know that I am speaking according to the strict meaning of
the words, and not in the spirit of an accuser. I will speak
even more plainly ; I will say that he has left nothing in.
any one's house, nothing even in the towns, nothing in public
places, not even in the temples, nothing in the possession of
any Sicilian, nothing in the possession of any Roman citizen;
that he has left nothing, in short, which either came before
his eyes or was suggested to his mind, whether private pro
perty or public, or profane or sacred, in all Sicily.
Where then shall I begin rather than with that city which
was above all others in your affection, and which was your
chosen place of enjoyment 1 or with what class of men rather
than with your flatterers 1 For by that means it will be the
more easily seen how you behaved among those men who
hate you, who accuse you, who will not let you rest, when you
are proved to have plundered among the Mamertines, who
are your friends, in the most infamous manner.
II. Caius Heius is a Marnertine — all men will easily grant
me this who have ever been to Messana ; the most accom
plished man in every point of view in all that city. His
house is the very best in all Messana, — most thoroughly
known, most constantly open, most especially hospitable to all
our fellow-citizens. That house before the arrival of Verres
was so splendidly adorned, as to be an ornament even to the
city. For Messana itself, which is admirable on account of
its situation, its fortifications, and its harbour, is very empty
and bare of those things in which Verres delights. There
was in the house of Heius a private chapel of great sacred-
ness, handed down to him from his ancestors, very ancient ;
in which he had four very beautiful statues, made with the
greatest skill, and of very high character ; calculated not only
to delight Verres, that clever and accomplished man, but even
any one of us whom he calls the mob : — one, a statue of
Cupid, in marble, a work of Praxiteles ; for in truth, while I
have been inquiring into that man's conduct, I have learnt
the names of the workmen; it was the same workman, as
I imagine, who made that celebrated Cupid of the same figure
as this which is at Thespise, on account of which people go to
see Thespise, for there is no other reason for going to see it;
400 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
and therefore that great man Lucius Mumrnius, when he
carried away from that town the statues of the Muses which
are now before the temple of Good Foi'tune, and the other
statues which were not consecrated, did not touch this marble
Cupid, because it had been consecrated.
III. But to return to that private chapel ; there was this
statue, which I am speakrag of, of Cupid, made of marble. On
the other side there was a Hercules, beautifully made of
brass; that was said to be the work of Myron, as I believe,
and it undoubtedly was so. Also before those gods there were
little altars, which might indicate to any one the holiness of
the chapel. There were besides two brazen statues, of no
very great size, but of marvellous beauty, in the dress and
robes of virgins, which with uplifted hands were supporting
some sacred vessels which were placed on their heads, after
the fashion of the Athenian virgins. They were called the
Canephorye, but their maker was .... (who ? who was he ?
thank you, you are quite right,) they called him Polycletus.
Whenever any one of our citizens went to Messana, he used
to go and see these statues. They were open every day for
people to go to see them. The house was not more an orna
ment to its master, than it was to the city.
Caius Claudius, whose sedileship we know to have been a
most splendid affair, used this statue of Cupid, as long as he
kept the forum decorated in honour of the immortal gods and
the Roman people. And as he was connected by ties of
hospitality with the Heii, and was the patron of the Mamer-
tine people, — as he availed himself of their kindness to lend
him this, so he was careful to restore it. There have lately
been noble men of the same kind, 0 judges; — why do I say
lately 1 Ay, we have seen some very lately, a very little
while ago indeed, who have adorned the forum and the public
buildings, not with the spoils of the provinces, but with orna
ments belonging to their friends, — with splendid things lent by
their own connexions, not with the produce of the thefts of
guilty men, — and who afterwards have restored the statues and
decorations, each to its proper owner ; men who have not
taken things away out of the cities of our allies for the sake
of a four-day festival, under pretence of the shows to be exhi
bited in their sedileship, and after that carried them off to
their own homes, and their own villas. All these statues
V. AGAINST VERRES. 401
which I have mentioned, 0 judges, Verres took away from
Heius, out of his private chapel. He left, I say, riot one of
those things, nor anything else, except one old wooden figure,
— Good Fortune, as I believe ; that, forsooth, he did not choose
to have in his house !
IV. Oh ! for the good faith of gods and men ! What is the
meaning of all this 1 What a cause is this ! What impudence
is this ! The statues which I am speaking of, before they
were taken away by you, no commander ever came to
Messana without seeing. So many prsetors, so many consuls
as there have been in Sicily, in time of peace, and in time of
war ; so many men of every sort as there have been — I do not
speak of upright, innocent, conscientious men, but so many
covetous, so many audacious, so many infamous men as there
have been, not one of them all was violent enough, or seemed
to himself powerful enough or noble enough, to venture to
ask for, or to take away, or even to touch anything in that
chapel. Shall Verres take away everything which is most
beautiful everywhere ? Shall it not be allowed to any one
besides to have anything 1 Shall that one house of his contain
so many wealthy houses 1 Was it for this reason that none
of his predecessors ever touched these things, that he might
be able to carry them off? Was this the reason why Caius
Claudius Pulcher restored them, that Caius Verres might be
able to steal them] But that Cupid had no wish for the
house of a pimp and the establishment of a harlot ; he was:
quite content to stay in that chapel where he was hereditary ;
he knew that he had been left to Heius by his ancestors, with
the rest of the sacred things which he inherited ; he did not
require the heir of a prostitute. But why am I borne on so
impetuously ? I shall in a moment be refuted by one word.
" I bought it," says he. 0 ye immortal gods, what a splendid
defence ! we sent a broker into the province with military
command and with the forces, to buy up all the statues, all.
the paintings, all the silver plate and gold plate, and ivory,
and jewels, and to leave nothing to any body. For this defence
seems to me to be got ready for everything; that he bought
them. In the first place, if I should grant to you that which
you wish, namely, that you bought them, since against all this
class of accusations you are going to use this defence alone, I
ask what sort of tribunals you thought that there would be
D D
403 CICERO S ORATIOXS.
at Rome, if you thought that any one would grant you this,
that you in your prsetorship and in your command1 bought
up so many and such valuable things, — everything, in short,
which was of any value in the whole province.
V. liemark the care of our ancestors, who as yet suspected
no such conduct as this, but yet provided against the things
which might happen in affairs of small importance. They
thought that no one who had gone as governor2 or as lieu
tenant into a province would be so insane as to buy silver, for
that was given him out of the public funds; or raiment, for
that was afforded him by the laws ; they thought he might
buy a slave, a thing which we all use, and which is not pro
vided by the laws. They made a law, therefore, " that no one
should buy a slave except in the room of a slave who was
dead." If any slave had died at Rome 1 No, if any one had
died in the place where his master was. For they did not
mean you to furnish your house in the province, but to be of
use to the province in its necessities. What was the reason why
they so carefully kept us from making purchases in the pro
vinces? This was it, 0 judges, because they thought it a
robbery, not a purchase, when the seller was not allowed to
sell on his own terms. And they were aware that, in the
provinces, if he who was there with the command and power2
1 The Latin word is imperium. " Imperium (as opposed to Potestas)
is the power which was conferred by the state upon an individual who
was appointed to command an army. . . . The imperium was as neces
sary for the governor of a province, as for a general who merely com
manded the armies of the republic ; as without it he could not exercise
military authority. ... It was conferred by a special law, and was
limited, if not by the terms in which it was conferred, at least by usage.
It could not be held or exercised within the city."— Smith, Diet. Ant.
p. 508, v. Imperium.
2 The Latin word in each case is potestas. " According to Paulus,
potestas, as applied to a magistrate, is equivalent to imperium. . . . But
potestas is applied to magistrates who had not the imperium, as, for
instance, to quasstorsand tribunes of the people ; and potestas and impe
rium are often opposed in Cicero. Thus it seems that potestas, like many
other lloman terms, had both a wider signification and a narrower one ;
in its wider signification it might mean all the power that was delegated
to any person by the state, whatever might be the extent of that power ;
in its narrower signification, it was on the one hand equivalent to
imperium, and on the other, it expressed the power of those func
tionaries who- had not the imperium."— Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 721, v.
Potestas.
V. AGAINST YERRES. 403
of a governor wished to purchase what was in any one's pos
session, and was allowed to do so, it would come to pass that
lie would get whatever he chose, whether it was to be sold or
not. at whatever price he pleased. Some one will say, " Do
not deal with Verres in that manner ; do not try and examine
his actions by the standard of old-fashioned conscientiousness;
allow him to have bought them without being punished for
it, provided he bought them in a fair way, not through any
arbitrary exercise of power, nor from any one against his will,
or by violence." I will so deal with him. If Heius had any
thing for sale, if he sold it for the price at which he valued it,
I give up inquiring why you bought it.
VI. What then are we to do ? Are we to use arguments
in a case of this sort1? We must ask, I suppose, whether
Heius was in debt, whether he had an auction, — if he had,
whether he was in such difficulties about money matters,
whether he was oppressed by such want, by such necessity,
as to strip his private chapel, to sell his paternal gods. But
I see that the man had no auction ; that he never sold any
thing except the produce of his land ; that he not only had
no debts, but that he had always abundance of ready money.
Even if all these things were contrary to what I say they
were, still I say that he would not have sold things which
had been so many years in the household and chapel of his
ancestors. " What will you say if he was persuaded by the
greatness of the sum given him for them ? " It is not pro
bable that a man, rich as he was, honourable as he was, should
have preferred money to his own religious feelings and to the
memorials of his ancestors. "That may be, yet men are
sometimes led away from their habits and principles by large
sums of money." Let us see, then, how great a sum this was
which could turn Heius, a man of exceeding riches, by no
means covetous, away from decency, from affection, and
from religion. You ordered him, I suppose, to enter in his
account books, " All these statues of Praxiteles, of Myron, of
Polycletus, were sold to Verres for six thousand five hundred
sesterces." Head the extracts from his accounts —
\The accounts of Heius are read.]
I am delighted that the illustrious names of these workmen,
whom those men extol to the skies, have fallen so low in the
DD 2
404 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
estimation of Verres — the Cupid of Praxiteles for sixteen
hundred sesterces. From that forsooth has come the proverb,
" I had rather buy it than ask for it."
VII. Some one will say, " What ! do you value those things
at a very high price 1 " But I am not valuing them according
to any calculation of my own, or any need which I have for
them ; but I think that the matter ought to be looked at by you
in this light, — what is the value of these things in the opinion
of those men who are judges of these things ; at what price
they are accustomed to be sold; at what price these very
things could be sold, if they were sold openly and freely ;
lastly, at what price Verres himself values them. For he
would never have been so foolish, if he had thought that
Cupid worth only four hundred denarii, as to allow himself to
be made a subject for the common conversation and general
reproach of men. Who then of you all is ignorant at how
great a price these things are valued 1 Have we not seen at
an auction a brazen statue of no great size sold for a hundred
and twenty thousand sesterces ? What if I were to choose to
name men who have bought similar things for no less a price,
or even for a higher one 1 Can I not do so 1 In truth, the
only limit to the valuation of such things is the desire which
any one has for them, for it is difficult to set bounds to the
price unless you first set bounds to the wish. I see then that
Heius was neither led by his inclination, nor by any temporary
difficulties, nor by the greatness of the sum given, to sell these
statues ; and that you, under the pretence of purchase which
you put forward, in reality seized and took away these things
by force, through fear, by your power and authority, from
that man, whom, along with the rest of our allies in that
country, the Roman people had entrusted not only to your
power, but also to your upright exercise of .it. What can
there be, judges, so desirable for me in making this charge,
as that Heius should say this same tiling ? Nothing certainly ;
but let us not wish for what is difficult to be obtained. Heius
is a Mamertine. The state of the Mamertines alone, by a
common resolution, praises that man in the name of the city.
To all the rest of the Sicilians he is an object of hatred ; by
the Mamertines alone is he liked. But of that deputation
which has been sent to utter his praises, Heius is the chief
man ; in truth, he is the chief man of his city, and too much
V. AGAINST VERRES. 405
occupied in discharging the public duties imposed upon him
to speak of his private injuries. Though I was aware of and
had given weight to these considerations, still, 0 judges, I
trusted myself to Heius. I produced him at the first plead
ing ; and indeed I did it without any danger, for what answer
could Heius give even if he turned out a dishonest man, and
unlike himself 1 Could he say that these statues were at his
house, and not with Verres 1 How could he say anything of
that sort ? If he were the basest of men, and were inclined to
lie most shamelessly, he would say this ; that he had had them
for sale, and that he had sold them at the price he wanted for
them. The man the most noble in all his city, who was espe
cially anxious that you should have a high opinion of his consci
entiousness and of his worth, says first, that he spoke in Verres's
praise by the public authority of his city, because that com
mission had been given to him ; secondly, that he had not had
these things for sale, and that, if he had been allowed to do
what he wished, he could never have been induced by any
terms to sell those things which were in his private chapel,
having been left to him and handed down to him from his
ancestors.
VIII. Why are you sitting there, 0 Verres ? What are you
waiting for 1 Why do you say that you are hemmed in and
overwhelmed by the cities of Centuripa, of Catina, of Halesa,
of Tyndaris, of Enna, of Agyrium, and by all the other cities
of Sicily ? Your second country, as you used to call it, Mes-
sana herself attacks you ; your own Messana I say ; the
assistant in your crimes, the witness of your lusts, the receiver
of your booty and your thefts. For the most honourable man
of that city is present, a deputy sent from his home on account
of this very trial, the chief actor in the panegyric on you ;
who praises you by the public order of his city, for so he has
been charged and commanded to do. Although you recollect,
O judges, what he answered when he was asked about the
ship ; that it had been built by public labour, at the public
expense, and that a Mamertine senator had been appointed by
the public authority to superintend its building. Heius in
his private capacity flees to you for aid, 0 judges ; he avails
himself of this law, the common fortress of our allies, by
which this tribunal is established. Although there is a law
for recovering money which has been unjustly extorted, he
406 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
says that ho does not seek to recover any money ; which,
though it has been taken from him, he does not so much care
about ; but he says he does demand back from you the sacred
images belonging to his ancestors, he does demand back from
you his hereditary household gods. Have you any shame, O
Verres? have you any religion? have you any fear? You
have lived in Heius's house at Messana ; you saw him almost
daily performing sacred rites in his private chapel before those
gods. He is not influenced by money ; he does not even ask
to have those things restored which were merely ornaments.
Keep the Canephora? ; restore the images of the gods. And
because he said this, because after a given time he, an ally
and friend of the Roman people, addressed his complaints to
you in a moderate tone, becaiise he was very attentive to reli
gious obligation not only while demanding back his paternal
gods, but also in giving his evidence on oath ; know that one
of the deputies has been sent back to Messana, that very man
who superintended the building of that ship at the public
expense, to demand from the senate that Heius should be
condemned to an ignominious punishment.
IX. 0 most insane of men, what did jon think ? that you
should obtain what you requested ? Did you not know how
greatly he was esteemed by his fellow-citizens ; how great his
influence was considered? But suppose you had obtained
your request ; suppose that the Mamertines had passed any
severe vote against Heius, what do yoiT think would have been
the authority of their panegyric, if they had decreed punish
ment to the man who it was notorious had given true
evidence ? Although, what sort of praise is that, when he who
utters it, being questioned, is compelled to give answers inju
rious to him whom he is praising ? What ! are not those who
are praising you, my witnesses? Heius is an encomiast of
yours; he has done you the most serious injury. I will
bring forward the rest ; they will gladly be silent about all
that they are allowed to suppress ; they will say what they
cannot help saying, unwillingly. Can they deny that a trans
port of the largest size was built for that man at Messana ?
Let them deny it if they can. Can they deny that a Mamer-
tine senator was appointed by the public authority to super
intend the building of that ship ? I wish they would deny it.
There are other points also which I prefer reserving unmen-
V. AGAINST VERRES. 407
tioned at present, in order to give as little time as possible to
them for planning and arranging their perjury. Let this
praise, then, be placed to your account ; let these men como
to your relief with their authority, who neither ought to help
you if they were able, nor could do so if they wished ; on
whom in their private capacity you have inflicted many inj i-
ries, and put many affronts, while in their city you have
dishonoured many families for ever by your adulteries and
crimes. " But you have been of public service to their city."
Not without great injury to the republic and to the province
of Sicily. They were bound to supply and they used to
supply sixty thousand modii of wheat to the Roman people
for payment ; that was remitted by you of your own sole
authority. The republic was injured because by your means
its right of dominion over one city was disparaged; the
Sicilians were injured, because this quantity was not de
ducted from the total amount of the corn to be provided
by the island, but was only transferred to the cities of Cen-
turipa and Halesa, whose inhabitants were exempt from that
tax ; and on them a greater burden was imposed than they
were able to bear. It was your duty to require them to
furnish a ship, in compliance with the treaty. You remitted
it for three years. During all those years you never demanded
one soldier. You acted as pirates are accustomed to act,
who, though they are the common enemies of all men, still
select some friends, whom they not only spare, but even
em-ich with their booty ; and especially such as have a town
in a convenient situation, where they often, and sometimes
even necessarily, put in with their vessels.
X. The town of Phaselis, which Publius Servilius took, had
not been in former times a city of Cilicians and pirates. The
Lycians, a Greek tribe, inhabited it; but because it was in
such a situation as it was, and because it projected into the
sea, so that pirates from Cilicia often necessarily touched at
it when departing on an expedition, and were also often
borne thither on their retreats, the pirates connected that
city with themselves ; at first by commercial intercourse,
and afterwards by a regular alliance. The city of the Mamer-
tines was not formerly of bad character ; it was even a city
hostile to dishonest men, and detained the luggage of Caius
Cato, the one who was consul. But then what sort of a man
408 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
was he? a most eminent and most influential man; who,
however, though he had been consul, was convicted. So
Caius Cato, the grandson of two most illustrious men, Lucius
Paullus and Marcus Cato, and the son of the sister of Publius
Africanus; who, even when convicted, at a time when severe
judgments were in the habit of being passed, found the
damages to which he was liable only estimated at eighteen
thousand sesterces ; with this man, I say, the Mamertines
were angry, who have often expended a greater sum than the
damages in the action against Cato were laid at, in one ban
quet for Timarchides. But this city was the Phaselis for that
robber and pirate of Sicily. Hither everything was brought
from all quarters ; with them it was left ; whatever required
to be concealed, they kept separate and stored away. By
their agency he contrived everything which he wished put
on board ship privily, and exported secretly; and in their
harbour he contrived to have a vessel of the largest size built,
for him to send to Italy loaded with plunder. In return for
these services, he gave them immunity from all expense, all
labour, all military service, in short, from everything. For
three years they were the only people, not only in Sicily, but,
according to my opinion, in the whole world at such a time,
who enjoyed excuse, relief, freedom, and immunity from every
sort of expense, and trouble, and office. Hence arose that
Verrean festival ; hence it was that he ventured to order
Sextus Cominius to be dragged before him at a banquet, at
whom he attempted to throw a goblet, whom he ordered to
be seized by the throat, and to be hurried from the banquet
and thrown into a dark prison ; hence came that cross, on
which, in the sight of many men, he suspended a Roman
citizen ; that cross which he never ventured to erect anywhere
except among that people, whom he had made sharers in all
his crimes and robberies.
XL Do you, 0 Mamertines! dare to come to praise any
one 1 By what authority 1 by that which you ought to have
with the Senatorial order ? by that which you ought to have
with the Roman people ? Is there any city, not only in our
provinces, but in the most distant nations, either so powerful,
or so free, or so savage and uncivilized 1 is there any king,
who would not invite a Senator of the Roman people to his
house and to his home ? An honour which is paid not only
V. AGAINST VERRES. 409
to the main, but in the first place to the Roman people, by
whose indulgence we have risen to this order, and secondly to
the authority of this order ; and unless that is respected
among our allies, where will be the name and dignity of the
empire among foreign nations ? The Mamertines did not
give me any public invitation — when I say me, that is a
trifle ; but when they did not invite a Senator of the Roman
people, they withheld au honour due not to the man but to
his order. For to Tullius himself, the most splendid and
magnificent house of Cnseus Pompeius Basilicus was opened ;
with whom he would have lodged even if he had been invited
by you. There was also the most honourable house of the
Perceunii, who are now also called Pompeius ; where Lucius
my brother lodged and was received by them with the greatest
eagerness. A Senator of the Roman people, as far as de
pended on you as a body, lay in your town, and passed the
night in the public streets. No other city ever did such a
thing. " Yes," say you, " for you were instituting a prosecu
tion against our friend." Will you put your own interpreta
tion on what private business I have of my own, by diminish
ing the honour due to the Senate ? But I will make my
complaint of this conduct, if ever the time comes that there
is any discussion concerning you among that body, which, up
to this time, has been affronted by no one but you. With
what face have you presented yourself before the eyes of the
Roman people ? when you have not yet pulled down that
cross, which is even now stained with the blood of a Roman
citizen, which is fixed up in your city by the harbour, and have
not thrown it into the sea and purified all that place, before you
came to Rome, and before this tribunal. On the territory of
the Mamertines, connected with us by treaty, at peace with
us, is that monument of your cruelty raised. Is not your
city the only one where, when any one arrives at it from
Italy, he sees the cross of a Roman citizen before he sees any
friend of the Roman people ? which you are in the habit of
displaying to the people of Rhegium, whose city you envy,
and to your inhabitants, Roman citizens as they are, to make
them think less of themselves, and be less inclined to despise
you, when they see the privileges of our citizenship extin
guished by such a punishment.
XII. But you say you bought these things 1 What ?
410 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
did you forget to purchase of the same Heius that Attalic1
tapestry, celebrated over the whole of Sicily ? You might
have bought them in the same way as you did the statues.
For what did you do ? Did you wish to spare the account-
books 1 This escaped the notice of that stupid man ; he
thought that what he stole from the wardrobe would be
less notorious than what he had stolen from the private
chapel. But how did he get it ? I cannot relate it more
plainly than Heius himself related it before you. When I
asked, whether any other part of his property had come to
Verres, he answered that he had sent him orders to send the
tapestry to Agrigentum to him. I asked whether he had
sent it. He replied as he must, that is, that he had been
obedient to the preetor ; that he had sent it. — I asked
whether it had arrived at Agrigentum ; he said it had arrived.
— I asked in what condition it had returned ; he said it had
not returned yet. — There was a laugh and a murmur from all
the people. Did it never occur to you in this instance to
order him to make an entry in his books, that he had sold
you this tapestiy too, for six thousand five hundred sesterces?
Did you fear that your debts would increase, if these things
were to cost you six thousand five hundred sesterces, which
you could easily sell for two hundred thousand ? It was
worth that, believe me. You would have been able to
defend yourself if you had given that sum for it. No one
would then have asked how much it was worth. If you
could only prove that you had bought it, you could easily
make your cause and your conduct appear reasonable to any
one. But as it is, you have no way of getting out of your
difficulty about the tapestry. What shall I say next ? Did
you take away by force some splendid harness, which is said
to have . belonged to King Hiero, from Philarchus of Centu-
ripa, a wealthy and high-born man, or did you buy it of him ?
When I was in Sicily, this is what I heard from the Centuri-
pans and from everybody else, for the case was very notorious ;
people said that you had taken away this harness from Phil
archus of Centuripa, and other very beaxitiful harness from
Aristus of Panorinus, and a third set from Cratippus of Tyn-
1 Attains, king of Pergamus, had been the inventor of weaving gold
thread into tapestry work, and therefore tapestry with gold threads
interwoven in it was called by his name.
V. AGAINST VERRES. 411
darus. Indeed, if Philarchus had sold it to you, you would
not, after the prosecution was instituted against you, have
promised to restore it. But because you saw that many
people knew of it, you thought that if you restored it to him,
you would only have so much the less, but the original
transaction would be proved against you nevertheless ; and
so you did not restore it. Philarchus said in his evidence,
that when he became acquainted with this disease of yours,
as your friends call it, he wished to conceal from you the
knowledge of the existence of this harness; that when he was
summoned by you, he said that he had not got any; and
indeed, that he had removed them to another person's house,
that they might not be found ; but that your instinct was so
great, that you saw them by the assistance of the veiy man
in whose custody they were deposited ; that then he could
not deny that you had found him out, and so that the har
ness was taken from him against his will, and without any
payment.
XIII. Now, 0 judges, it is worth your while to know how
he was accustomed to find and trace out all these things.
There are two brothers, citizens of Cibyra, Tlepolemus and
Hiero, one of whom, I believe, was accustomed to model in
wax, the other was a painter. I fancy these men, as they
had become suspected by their fellow-citizens of having plun
dered the temple of Apollo at Cibyra, fearing a trial and the
punishment of the law, had fled from their homes. As they
had known that Verres was a great connoisseur of such works
as theirs, at the time that he, as you learnt from the wit
nesses, came to Cibyra with fictitious bills of exchange, they,
when flying from their homes as exiles, came to him when he
was in Asia. He has kept them with him ever since that
time ; and in the robberies he committed, and in the booty
he acquired during his lieutenancy, he greatly availed himself
of their assistance and their advice. These are the men who
were meant when Quintus Tadius made an entry in his books
that he had given things by Verres's order to some Greek
painters. They were already well known to, and had been
thoroughly tried by him, when he took them with him into
Sicily. And when they arrived there, they scented out
and tracked everything in so marvellous a manner, (you
might have thought they were bloodhounds,) that, wherever
412 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
anything was, they found it out by some means or other.
Some things they found out by threatening, some by pro
mising ; this by means of slaves, that through freemen ; one
thing by a friend, another by an enemy. Whatever pleased
them was sure to be lost. They whose plate was demanded
had nothing else to hope, than that Tlepolemus and Hiero
might not approve of it.
XIV. I will relate to you this fact, 0 judges, most truly.
I recollect that Pamphilus of Lilybeeum. a connexion of mine
by tics of hospitality, and a personal friend of mine, a man
of the highest birth, told me, that when that man had
taken from him, by his absolute power, an ewer made by the
hand of Boethus, of exquisite workmanship and great weight,
he went home very sad in truth, and greatly agitated, be
cause a vessel of that sort, which had been left to him by
his father and his forefathers, and which he was accustomed
to use on days of festival, and on the arrival of ancient
friends, had been taken from him. While I was sitting at
home, said he, in great indignation, up comes one of the
slaves of Venus ; he orders me immediately to bring to the
praetor some embossed goblets. I was greatly vexed, said
he ; I had two ; I order them both to be taken out of the
closet, lest any worse thing should happen, and to be brought
after me to the praetor's house. When I got there the
praetor was asleep ; the Cibyratic brothers were walking
about, and when they saw me, they said, Pamphilus, where
are the cups ? I show them with great grief ; — they praise
them. — I begin to complain that I shall have nothing left of
any value at all, if my cups too were taken away. Then they,
when they see me vexed, say, What are you willing to give
us to prevent these from being taken from you 1 To make
my story short, I said that T would give six hundred sesterces.
Meantime the praetor summons us ; he asks for the cups.
Then they began to say to the prsetor, that they had thought
from what they had heard, that Pamphilus's cups were of
some value, but that they were miserable things, quite
unworthy of Verres's having them among his plate. He said,
he thought so too. So Pamphilus saved his exquisite goblets.
And indeed, before I heard this, though I knew that it was a
very trifling sort of accomplishment to understand things of
that sort, yet I used to wonder that he had any knowledge
V. AGAINST VERRES. 413
of them at all, as T knew that in nothing whatever had he
any qualities like a man.
XV. But when I heard this, I then for the first time
understood that that was the use of these two Cibyratic
brothers ; that in his robberies he used his own hands, but
their eyes. But he was so covetous of that splendid reputa
tion of being thought to be a judge of such matters, that
lately, (just observe the man's madness,) after his case was
adjourned, when he was already as good as condemned, and
civilly dead, at the time of the games of the circus, when
early in the morning the couches were spread in preparation
for a banquet at the house of Lucius Sisenna, a man of the
first consideration, and when the plate was all set out, and
when, as was suited to the dignity of Lucius Sisenna, the
house was full of honourable men, he came to the plate, and
began in a leisurely way to examine and consider every sepa
rate piece. Some marvelled at the folly of the man, who,
while his trial was actually going on, was increasing the sus
picion of that covetousnei-s of which he was accused ; others
marvelled at his insensibility, that any such things could
come into his head, when the time for judgment in his cause
was so near at hand, and when so many witnesses had spoken
against him. But Sisenna's servants, who, I suppose, had
heard the evidence which had been given against him, never
took their eyes off him, and never departed out of reach of
the plate. Tt is the part of a sagacious judge, from small
circumstances to form his opinion of every man's covetousness
or incontinence. And will any one believe that this man
when prsetor, was able to keep either his covetousness or his
hands from the plate of the Sicilians, when, though a
defendant, and a defendant within two days of judgment, a
man in reality, and in the opinion of all men as good as
already condemned, he could not in a large assembly restrain
himself from handling and examining the plate of Lucius
Sisenna 1
XVI. But that my discourse may return to Lilybseum,
from which I have made this digression, there is a man named
Diocles, the son-in-law of Pamphilus, of that Pamphilus from
whom the ewer was taken away, whose surname is Popillius.
From this man he took away every article on his sideboard
where his plate was set out. He may say, if he pleases, that
414 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
he had bought them. In fact, in this case, by reason of the
magnitude of the robbery, an entry of it, I imagine, has been
made in the account-books. He ordered Timarchides to
value the plate. How did he do it ? At as low a price as
any one ever valued any thing presented to an actor.
Although I have been for some time acting foolishly in
saying so much about your purchases, and in asking whether
you bought the things, and how, and at what price you
bought them, when I can settle all that by one word. Pro
duce me a written list of what plate you acquired in the pro
vince of Sicily, from whom, and at what price you bought each
article. What will you do 1 Though I ought not to ask you
for these accounts, for I ought to have your account-books
and to produce them. But you say that you never kept any
accounts of your expenses in these years. Make me out at
least this one which I am asking for, the account of the
plate, and I will not mind the rest at present. " I have no
writings of the sort; I cannot produce any accounts." What
then is to be done ? What do you think that these judges
can do ? Your house was full of most beautiful statues
already, before your proetorship ; many were placed in your
villas, many were deposited with your friends ; many were
given and presented to other people ; yet you have no
accounts speaking of any single one having been bought. All
the plate in Sicily has been taken away. There is nothing
left to any one that can be called his own. A scandalous
defence is invented, that the praetor bought all that plate ;
and yet that cannot be proved by any accounts. If you do
produce any accounts, still there is no entry in them how you
have acquired what you have got. But of these years during
which you say that you bought the greatest number of things,
you produce no accounts at all. Must you not inevitably be
condemned, both by the accounts which you do, and by those
which you do not produce ?
XVII. You also took away at Lilybseum whatever silver
vessels you chose from Marcus Cjelius, a Roman knight, a
most excellent young man. You did not hesitate to take
away the whole furniture of Caius Cacurius, a most active
and accomplished man, and of the greatest influence in his
city. You took away, with the knowledge of every body, a
very large and very beautiful table of citron-wood from
V. AGAINST VERRES. 415
Quintus Lutatius Diodorus, who, owing to the kind exer
tion of hie interest by Quintus Catulus, was made a Roman
citizen by Lucius Sylla. I do not object to you that you
stripped and plundered a most worthy imitator of yours in
his whole character, Apollonius, the son of Nico, a citizen of
Drepanum, who is now called Aulus Clodius, of all his exqui
sitely wrought silver plate ; — I say nothing of that. For he
does not think that any injury has been done to him, because
you came to his assistance when he was a ruined man, with
the rope round his neck, and shared with him the property
belonging to their father, of which he had plundered his
wards at Drepanum. I am even very glad if you took any
thing from him, and I say that nothing was ever better done
by you. But it certainly was not right that the statue of
Apollo should have been taken away from Lyso of Lilybseum,
a most eminent man, with whom you had been staying as a
guest. But you will say that you bought it — I know that —
for six hundred sesterces. So I suppose : I know it, I say ;
I Avill produce the accounts ; and yet that ought not to have
been done. Will you say that the drinking vessels with
emblems of Lilybeeum on them were bought from Heius, the
minor to whom Marcellus is guardian, whom you had plun
dered of a large sum of money, or will you confess that they
were taken by force ?
But why do I enumerate all his ordinary iniquities in
affairs of this sort, which appear to consist only in robberies
committed by him, and in losses borne by those whom he
plundered ? Listen, if you please, 0 judges, to an action of
such a sort as will prove to you clearly his extraordinary
madness and frenzy, rather than any ordinary covetousness.
XVIII. There is a man of Melita, called Diodorus, who
has already given evidence before you. He has been now
living at Lilybfeum many years ; a man of great nobility at
home, and of great credit and popularity with the people
among whom he has settled, on account of his virtue. It is
reported to Verres of this man that he has some exceedingly
fine specimens of chased work ; and among them two goblets
called Thericlean,1 made by the hand of Mentor with the
1 " Thericles was a potter in the time of Aristophanes, who made
earthenware vessels of a peculiar black clay. In subsequent time, any
goblets made in imitation of his, whether of wood, silver, or glass, were
called Thericlean." — Graevius.
4:16 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
most exquisite skill. And when Verres heard of this, he was
inflamed with such a desire, not only of beholding, but also of
appropriating them, that he summoned Diodorus, and de
manded them. He replied, as was natural for a man who
took great pride in them, that he had not got them at Lily-
bseum ; that he had left them at Melita, in the house of a
relation of his. On this he immediately sends men on whom
he can rely to Melita ; he writes to certain inhabitants of
Melita to search out those vessels for him ; he desires Diodo
rus to give them letters to that relation of his — the time
appeared to him endless till he could see those pieces of plate.
Diodorus, a prudent and careful man, who wished to keep his
own property, writes to his relation to make answer to those
men who came from Verres, that he had sent the cups to
Lilybseum a few days before. In the meantime he himself
leaves the place. He preferred leaving his home, to staying
in it and losing that exquisitely wrought silver work. But
when Verres heard of this, he was so agitated that he seemed
to every one to be raving, and to be beyond all question mad.
Because he could not steal the plate himself, he said that he
had been robbed by Diodorus of some exquisitely wrought
vessels ; he poured out threats against the absent Diodorus ;
he used to roar out before people ; sometimes he could not
restrain his tears. We have heard in the mythology of
Eiiphyla being so covetous that when she had seen a necklace,
made, I suppose, of gold and jewels, she was so excited by its
beauty, that she betrayed her husband for the sake of it. His
covetousness was similar ; but in one respect more violent
and more senseless, because she was desiring a thing which
she had seen, while his wishes were excited not only by his
eyes, but even by his ears.
XIX. He orders Diodorus to be sought for over the whole
province. He had by this time struck his camp, packed up
his baggage, and left Sicily. Verres, in order by some means
or other to bring the man back to the province, devises this
plan, if it is to be called a plan, and not rather a piece of
madness,. He sets up one of the men he calls his hounds, to
say that he wishes to institute a prosecution against Diodorus
of Melita for a capital offence. At first all men wondered at
such a thing being imputed to Diodorus, a most quiet man,
and as far removed as any man from all suspicion, not only
V. AGAINST VBRBES. 417
of crime, but of even the slightest irregularity. But it soon
became evident, that all this was done for the sake of his
silver. Verres does not hesitate to order the prosecution to
be instituted ; and that, I imagine, was the first instance of
his allowing an accusation to be made against an absent man.
The matter was notorious over all Sicily, that men were pro
secuted for capital offences because the prsetor coveted their
chased silver plate ; and that prosecutions were instituted
against them not only when they were present, but even in
their absence. Diodorus goes to Rome, and putting on
mourning, calls on all his patrons and friends ; relates the
affair to every one. Earnest letters are written to Verres by
his father, and by his friends, warning him to take care what
he did, and what steps he took respecting Diodorus ; that the
matter was notorious and very unpopular; that he must be
out of his senses ; that this one charge would ruin him if he
did not take care. At that time he considered his father, if not
in the light of a parent, at least in that of a man. He had not
yet sufficiently prepared himself for a trial ; it was his first
year in the province ; he was not, as he was by the time of
the affair of Sthenius, loaded with money. And so his frenzy
was checked a little, not by shame, but by fear and alarm.
He does not dare to condemn Diodorus ; he takes his name
out of the list of defendants while he is absent. In the
meantime Diodorus, for nearly three years, as long as that
man was prsetor, was banished from the province and from
his home. Every one else, not only Sicilians, but Roman
citizens too, settled this in their minds, that, since he had
carried his covetousness to such an extent, there was nothing
which any one could expect to preserve or retain in his own
possession if it was admired ever so little by Verres.
XX. But after they understood that that brave man,
Quiritus Arrius, whom the province was eagerly looking for,
was not his successor, they then settled that they could keep
nothing so carefully shut up or hidden away, as not to be
most open and visible to his covetousness. After that, he took
away from an honourable and highly esteemed Roman knight,
named Cnseus Calidius, whose son he knew to be a senator
of the Roman people and a judge, some beautiful silver horses
which had belonged to Quintus Maxmius. I did not mean
to say this, 0 judges, for he bought those, he did not steal
E E
418 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
them ; I wish. I had not mentioned them. Now he will
boast, and have a fine ride on these horses. " I bought them,
I have paid the money for them." I have no doubt account-
books also will be produced. It is well worth while. Give
me then the account-books. You are at liberty to get rid of
this charge respecting Calidius, as long as I can get a sight of
these accounts ; still, if you had bought them, what ground
had Calidius for complaining at Rome, that; though he had
been living so many years in Sicily as a trader, you were the
only person who had so despised and so insulted him, as to
plunder him in common with all the rest of the Sicilians 1
what ground had he for declaring that he would demand his
plate back again from you, if he had sold it to you of his
own free will ? Moreover, how could you avoid restoring it
to Cnseus Calidius ; especially when he was such an intimate
friend of Lucius Sisenna, your defender, and as you had re
stored their property to the other friends of Sisenna ? Lastly,
I do not suppose you will deny that by the intervention of
Potamo, a friend of yours, you restored his plate to Lucius
Cordius, an honourable man, but not more highly esteemed than
Cnseus Calidius ; and it was he who made the cause of the
rest more difficult to plead before you ; for though you had
promised many men to restore them their property, yet,
after Cordius had stated in his evidence that you had restored
him his, you desisted from making any more restorations,
because you saw that you lost your plunder, and yet could
not escape the evidence against you. Under all other
praetors Cnseus Calidius, a Roman knight, was allowed to
have plate finely wrought ; he was permitted to be able from
his own stores to adorn and furnish a banquet handsomely,
when he had invited a magistrate or any superior officer.
Many men in power and authority have been with Cnseus
Calidiiis at his house ; no one was ever found so mad as to
take from him that admirable and splendid plate ; no one
was found bold enough to ask for it; no one impudent
enough to beg him to sell it. For it is an arrogant thing, an
intolerable thing, 0 judges, for a praetor to say to an honour
able, and rich, and well-appointed man in his province, " Sell
me those chased goblets." For it is saying, "You do not
deserve to have things which are so beautifully made ; they
are better suited to a man of my stamp." Are you, 0
V. AGAINST VERRES. 419
Verres, more worthy than Calidius ? whom (not to compare
your way of life with his, for they are not to be compared,
but) I will compare you with in respect of this very dignity
owing to which you make yourself out his superior. You gave
eighty thousand sesterces to canvassing agents to procure
your election as praetor ; you gave three hundred thousand
to an accuser not to press hardly upon you : do you, on that
account, look down upon and despise the equestrian order ?
Is it on that account that it seemed to you a scandalous
thing that Calidius should have anything that you admired
rather than that you should 'I
XXI. He has been long boasting of this transaction with
Calidius, and telling every one that he bought the things.
Did you also buy that censer of Lucius Papirius, a man of
the highest reputation, wealth, and honour, and a Roman
knight 1 who stated in his evidence that, when you had
begged for it to look at, you returned it with the emblems
torn off; so that you may understand that it is all taste in that
man, not avarice; that it is the fine work that he covets, not
the silver. Nor was this abstinence exercised only in the
case of Papirius ; he practised exactly the same conduct with
respect to every censer in Sicily ; and it is quite incredible
how many beautifully wrought censers there were. I imagine
that, when Sicily was at the height of its power and opulence,
there were'extensive workshops in that island ; for before that
man went thither as pnetor there was no house tolerably
rich, in which there were not these things, even if there was
no other silver plate besides ; namely, a large dish with
figures and images of the gods embossed on it, a goblet which
the women used for sacred purposes, and a censer. And all
these were antique, and executed with the most admirable
skill, so that one may suspect everything else in Sicily was
on a similar scale of magnificence ; but that though fortune
had deprived them of much, those things were still preserved
among them which were retained for purposes of religion.
I said just now, 0 judges, that there were many censers,
in almost every house in fact ; I assert also, that now there is
not even one left. What is the meaning of this1? what
monster, what prodigy did we send into the province ? Does
it not appear to you that he desired, when he returned to
Home, to satisfy not the covetousness of one man, not his
E E 2
420 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
own eyes only, but the insane passion of eveiy covetous man;
for as soon as he ever came into any city, immediately those
Cibyratic hounds of his were slipped, to search and find out
everything. If they found any large vessel, any considerable
work, they brought it to him with joy ; if they could hunt
out any smaller vessel of the same sort, they looked on those
as a sort of lesser game, whether they were dishes, cups,
censers, or anything else. What weepings of women, what
lamentations do you suppose took place over these things ?
things which may perhaps seem insignificant to you, but
which excite great and bitter indignation, especially among
women, who grieve when those things are torn from their
hands which they have been accustomed to use in religious
ceremonies, which they have received from their ancestors,
and which have always been in their family.
XXII. Do not now wait while I follow up this charge from
door to door, and show you that he stole a goblet from ^Eschy-
lus.the Tyndaritan; a dish from another citizen of Tyndaris
named Thraso ; a censer from Nymphodorus of Agrigentum.
When I produce my witnesses from Sicily he may select whom
he pleases for me to examine about dishes, goblets, and cen
sers. Not only no town, no single house that is tolerably well
off will be found to have been free from the injurious treat
ment of this man j who, even if he had come to a banquet,
if he saw any finely wrought plate, could not, 0 judges, keep
his hands from it. There is a man named Cnaeus Pom-
peius Philo, who was a native of Tyndaris ; he gave Verres a
supper at his villa in the country near Tyndaris ; he did what
Sicilians did not dare to do, but what, because he was a
citizen of Rome, he thought he could do with impunity, he
put before him a dish on which were some exceedingly
beautiful figures. Verres, the moment he saw it, determined
to rob his host's table of that memorial of the Penates and of
the gods of hospitality. But yet, in accordance with what
I have said before of his great moderation, he restored the
rest of the silver after he had torn off the figures ; so free
was he from all avarice ! What want you more ? Did he
not do the same thing to Eupolemus of Calacta, a noble man,
connected with, and an intimate friend of the Luculli ; a man
who is now serving in the army under Lucius Lucullus 1 He
was supping with him ; the rest of the silver which he had
V. AGAINST VERRES. 421
set before him had no ornament on it, lest he himself
should also be left without any ornament ; but there were
also two goblets, of no large size, but with figures on them.
He, as if he had been a professional diner-out, who was not
to go away without a present, on the spot, in the sight of all
the other guests, tore off the figures. I do not attempt
to enumerate all his exploits of this sort ; it is neither neces
sary nor possible. I only produce to you tokens and samples
of each description of his varied and universal rascality.
ISTor did he behave in these affairs as if he would some day or
other be called to account for them, but altogether as if he
was either never likely to be prosecuted, or else as if the
more he stole, the less would be his danger when he was
brought before the court ; inasmuch as he did these things
which I am speaking of not secretly, not by the instrumen
tality of friends or agents, but openly, from his high position,
by his own power and authority.
XXIII. When he had come to Catina, a wealthy, honour
able, influential city, he ordered Dionysiarchus the proagorus,
that is to say, the chief magistrate, to be summoned before him;
he openly orders him to take care that all the silver plate
which was in anybody's house at Catina, was collected to
gether and brought to him. Did you not hear Philarchus
of Centuripa, a man of the highest position as to noble birth,
and virtue, and riches, say the same thing on his oath ;
namely, that Verres had charged and commanded him to
collect together, and order to be conveyed to him, all the
silver plate at Centuripa, by far the largest and wealthiest
city in all Sicily? In the same manner at Agyrium, all the
Corinthian vessels there were there, in accordance with his
command, were transported to Syracuse by the agency of
Apollodorus, whom you have heard as a witness. But the
most extraordinary conduct of all was this ; when that
painstaking and industrious prsetor had arrived at Halun-
tium, he would not himself go up into the town, because the
ascent was steep and difficult ; but he ordered Archagathus of
Haluntium, one of the noblest men, not merely in his own
city, but in all Sicily, to be summoned before him, and gave
him a charge to take care that all the chased silver that there
was at Haluntium, and every specimen of Corinthian work
too, should be at once taken down from the town to the sea-
422 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
side. Archagathus went up into the town. That noble man,
as one who wished to be loved and esteemed by his fellow-
citizens, was very indignant at having such an office imposed
upon him, and did not know what to do. He announces the
commands he has received. He orders every one to produce
what they had. There was great consternation, for the tyrant
himself had not gone away to any distance ; lying 011 a litter
by the sea-side below the town, he was waiting for Archagathus
and the silver plate. What a gathering of people do you sup
pose took place in the town 1 what an uproar? what weeping of
women 1 they who saw it would have said that the Trojan
horse had been introduced, and that the city was taken.
Vessels were brought out without their cases ; others were
wrenched out of the hands of women; many people's doors were
broken open, and their locks forced. For what else can you
suppose ? Even if ever, at a time of war and tumult, arms
are demanded of private citizens, still men give them un
willingly, thoiigh they know that they are giving them for the
common safety. Do not suppose then that any one produced
his carved plate out of his house for another man to steal,
without the greatest distress. Everything is brought down
to the shore. The Cibyratic brothers are summoned ; they
condemn some articles ; whatever they approve of has its
figures in relief or its embossed emblems torn off. And so
the Haluntines, having had all their ornaments wrenched off,
returned home with the plain silver.
XXIV. Was there ever, 0 judges, a drag-net of such a
sort as this in that province ? People have sometimes during
their year of office diverted some part of the public property
to their own use, in the most secret manner ; sometimes
they even secretly plundered some private citizen of some
thing; and still they were condemned. And if you ask me,
though I am detracting somewhat from my own credit by
saying so, I think those were the real accusers, who traced
the robberies of such men as this by scent, or by some lightly
imprinted footsteps ; for what is it that we are doing in
respect of Verres, who has wallowed in the mud till we can
find him out by the traces of his whole body? Is it a great
undertaking to say anything against a man, who while he
was passing by a place, having his litter put down to rest
for a little time, plundered a whole city, house by house,
V. AGAINST VERRES. 423
without condescending to any pretences, openly, by his own
authority, and by an absolute command ? But still, that he
might be able to say that he had bought them, he orders
Archagathus to give those men, to whom the plate had belonged,
some little money, just for form's sake. Archagathus found
a few who would accept the money, and those he paid. And
still Verres never paid Archagathus that money. Archa
gathus intended to claim it at Rome j but Cnseus Lentulus
Marcellinus dissuaded him, as you heard him state himself.
Read the evidence of Archagathus, and of Lentulus, — and
that you may not imagine that the man wished to heap up
such a mass of figures without any reason, just see at what
rate he valued you, and the opinion of the Roman people,
and the laws, and the courts of justice, and the Sicilian wit
nesses and traders. After he had collected such a vast
number of figures that he had not left one single figure to
anybody, he established an immense shop in the palace at
Syracuse ; he openly orders all the manufacturers, and car
vers, and goldsmiths to be summoned — and he himself had
many in his own employ ; he collects a great multitude of
men; he kept them employed uninterruptedly for eight
months, though all that time no vessels were made of any
thing but gold. In that time he had so skilfully wrought
the figures which he had torn off the goblets and censers, into
golden goblets, or had so ingeniously joined them into golden
cups, that you would say that they had been made for that
very purpose ; and he, the prsetor, who says that it was
owing to his vigilance that peace was maintained in Sicily,
was accustomed to sit in his tunic and dark cloak the greater
part of the day in this workshop.
XXV. I would not venture, 0 judges, to mention these
things, if I were not afraid that you might perhaps say that
you had heard more about that man from others in common
conversation, than you had heard from me in this trial ; for
who is there who has not heard of this workshop, of the
golden vessels, of Verres's tunic and dark cloak ? Name any
respectable man you please out of the whole body of settlers
at Syracuse, I will produce him ; there will not be one person
who will not say that he has either seen this or heard of it.
Alas for the age ! alas for the degeneracy of our manners !
I will not mention anything of any great antiquity ; there are
424 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
many of you, 0 judges, who knew Lucius Piso, the father of
this Lucius Piso, who was praetor. When he was praetor in
Spain, in which province he was slain, somehow or other,
while he was practising his exercises in arms, the golden ring
which he had was broken and crushed. As he wanted to get
himself another ring, he ordered a goldsmith to be summoned
into the forum before his throne of office, at Corduba, and
openly weighed him out the gold. He ordered the man to
set up his bench in the forum, and to make him a ring in
the presence of every one. Perhaps in truth some may say
that he was too exact, and to this extent any one who chooses
may blame him, but no further. Still such conduct was
allowable for him, for he was the son of Lucius Piso, of that
man who first made the law about extortion and embezzle
ment. It is quite ridiculous for me to speak of Verres now,
when I have just been speaking of Piso the Thrifty ; still,
see what a difference there is between the men : that man,
while he was making some sideboards full of golden vessels,
did not care what his reputation was, not only in Sicily, but
also at Kome in the court of justice ; the other wished all
Spain to know to half an ounce how much gold it took to
make a prsetor's ring. Forsooth, as the one proved his right
to his name, so did the other to his surname.
XXVI. It is utterly impossible for me either to retain in
my memory, or to embrace in my speech, all his exploits.
I wish just to touch briefly on the different kinds of deeds
done by him, just as here the ring of Piso reminded me of
what had otherwise entirely escaped my recollection. From
how many honourable men do you imagine that that man
tore the golden rings from off their fingers 1 He never hesi
tated to do so whenever he was pleased with either the
jewels or the fashion of the ring belonging to any one. I am.
going to mention an incredible fact, but still one so notorious
that I do not think that he himself will deny it. When a
letter had been brought to Valentius his interpreter from
Agrigentum, by chance Verres himself noticed the impression
on the seal ; he was pleased with it, he asked where the letter
came from ; he was told, from Agrigentum. He sent letters to
the men with whom he was accustomed to communicate, order
ing that ring to be brought to him as soon as possible. And
accordingly, in compliance with his letter, it was torn off the
V. AGAINST VEERES. 425
finger of a master of a family, a certain Lucius Titius, a
Roman citizen. But that covetousness of his is quite beyond
belief. For as he wished to provide three hundred couches
beautifully covered, with all other decorations for a banquet,
for the different rooms which he has, not only at Rome, but
in his different villas, he collected such a number, that there
was no wealthy house in all Sicily where he did not set up an
embroiderer's shop.
There is a woman, a citizen of Segesta, very rich, and
nobly born, by name Lamia. She, having her house full
of spinning jennies, for three years was making him robes
and coverlets, all dyed with purple ; Attalus, a rich man at
Netum ; Lyso at Lilybseum ; Critolaus at Enna ; at Syra
cuse ^Eschrio, Cleomenes, and Theomnastus ; at Elorum
Archonides and Megistus. My voice will fail me before the
names of the men whom he employed in this way will ; he
himself supplied the purple — his friends supplied only the
work, I dare say ; for I have no wish to accuse him in every
particular, as if it were not enough for me, with a view to
accuse him, that he should have had so much to give, that he
should have wished to carry away so many things ; and, be
sides all that, this thing which he admits, namely, that he
should have employed the work of his friends in affairs of
this sort. But now do you suppose that brazen couches and
brazen candelabra were made at Syracuse for any one but for
him the whole of that three years? He bought them, I
suppose ; but I am informing you so fully, 0 judges, of what
that man did in his province as prsetor, that he may not by
chance appear to any one to have been careless, and not to
have provided and adorned himself sufficiently when he had
absolute power.
XXVII. I come now, not to a theft, not to avarice, not to
covetousness, but to an action of that sort that every kind of
wickedness seems to be contained in it, and to be in it ; by
which the immortal gods were insulted, the reputation and
authority of the name of the Roman people was impaired,
hospitality was betrayed and plundered, all the kings who
were most friendly to us, and the nations which are under
their rule and dominion, were alienated from us by his wicked
ness. For you know that the kings of Syria, the boyish
sons of King Antiochus, have lately been at Rome. A.nd they
426 CICEEO'S ORATIONS.
came not on account of the kingdom of Syria ; for that they
had obtained possession of without dispute, as they had
received it from their father and their ancestors ; but they
thought that the kingdom of Egypt belonged to them and to
Selene their mother. When they, being hindered by the
critical state of the republic at that time, were not able to
obtain the discussion of the subject as they wished before the
senate, they departed for Syria, their paternal kingdom. One
of them — the one whose name is Antiochus — wished to make
his journey through Sicily. And so, while Verres was preetor,
he came to Syracuse. On this Verres thought that an in
heritance had come to him, because a man whom he had
heard, and on other accounts suspected had many splendid
things with him, had come into his kingdom and into his
power. He sends him presents — liberal enough — for all do
mestic uses ; as much wine and oil as he thought fit ; and as
much wheat as he could want, out of his tenths. After that
he invites the king himself to supper. He decorates a couch
abundantly and magnificently. He sets out the numerous
and beautiful silver vessels, in which he was so rich ; for he
had not yet made all those golden ones. He takes care that
the banquet shall be splendidly appointed and provided in
every particular. Why need I make a long story of it ? The
king departed thinking that Verres was superbly provided
with everything, and that he himself had been magnificently
treated. After that, he himself invites the prsetor to supper.
He displays all his treasures; much silver, also not a few
goblets of gold, which, as is the custom of kings, and espe
cially in Syria, were studded all over with most splendid
jewels. There was also a vessel for wine, a ladle hollowed out
of one single large precious stone, with a golden handle, con
cerning which, I think, you heard Quintus Minutius speak,
a sufficiently capable judge, and sufficiently credible witness.
Verres took each separate piece of plate into his hands,
praised it — admired it. The king was delighted that that
banquet was tolerably pleasant and agreeable to a praetor of the
Roman people. After the banquet was over, Verres thought of
nothing else, as the facts themselves showed, than how he
might plunder and strip the king of everything before he
departed from the province. He sends to ask for the most
exquisite of the vessels which he had seen at Antiochus's
V. AGAINST VERRES. 427
lodgings. He said that he wished to show them to his
engravers. The king, who did not know the man, most wil
lingly sent them, without any suspicion of his intention. He
sends also to borrow the jewelled ladle. He said that he
wished to examine it more attentively ; that also is sent
to him.
XXVIII. Now, 0 judges, mark what followed ; things
which you have already heard, and which the Roman people
will not hear now for the first time, and which have been
reported abroad among foreign nations to the furthest corners
of the earth. The kings, whom I have spoken of, had
brought to Home a candelabrum of the finest jewels, made
with most extraordinary skill, in order to place it in the
Capitol ; but as they found that temple not yet finished,
they could not place it there. Nor were they willing to dis
play it and produce it in common, in order that it might
seem more splendid when it was placed at its proper time in
the shrine of the great and good Jupiter ; and brighter, also, as
its beauty would come fresh and untarnished before the eyes
of men. They determined, therefore, to take it back with
them into Syria, with the intention, when they should hear
that the image of the great and good Jupiter was dedicated,
of sending ambassadors who should bring that exquisite and
most beautiful present, with other offerings, to the Capitol.
The matter, I know not how, got to his ears. For the king
had wished it kept entirely concealed ; not because he feared
or suspected anything, but because he did not wish many to
feast their eyes on it before the Roman people. He begs the
king, and entreats him most earnestly to send it to him ; he
says that he longs to look at it himself, and that he will not
allow any one else to see it. Antiochus, being both of a child
like and royal disposition, suspected nothing of that man's
dishonesty, and orders his servants to take it as secretly- as
possible, and well wrapped up, to the praetor's house. And
when they brought it there, and placed it on a table, having
taken off the coverings, Verres began to exclaim that it was
a thing worthy of the kingdom of Syria, worthy of being
a royal present, worthy of the Capitol. In truth, it was of
such splendour as a thing must be which is made of the most
brilliant and beautiful -j ewels : of such variety of pattern
that the skill of the workmanship seemed to vie with the
428 CICEKO'S ORATIONS.
richness of the materials ; and of such a size that it might
easily be seen that it had been made not for the furniture of
men, but for the decoration of a most noble temple. And
when he appeared to have examined it sufficiently, the servants
begin to take it up to carry it back again. He says that he
wishes to examine it over and over again ; that he is not
half satiated with the sight of it ; he orders them to depart
and to leave the candelabrum. So they then return to Anti-
ochus empty-handed.
XXIX. The king at first feared nothing, suspected nothing.
One day passed — two days — many days. It was not brought
back. Then the king sends to Verres to beg him to return it,
if he will be so good. He bids the slaves come again. The
king begins to think it strange. He sends a second time. It
is not returned. He himself calls on the man ; he begs him
to restore it to him. Think of the face and marvellous impu
dence of the man. That thing which he knew, and which he
had heard from the king himself was to be placed in the
Capitol, which he knew was being kept for the great and good
Jupiter, and for the Roman people, that he began to ask and
entreat earnestly to have given to him. When the king said
that he was prevented from complying by the reverence due
to Jupiter Capitolinus, and by his regard for the opinion of
men, because many nations were witnesses to the fact of the
candelabrum having been made for a present to the god,
the fellow began to threaten him most violently. When he
sees that he is no more influenced by threats than he had
been by prayers, on a sudden he orders him to leave his pro
vince before night. He says, that he has found out that
pirates from his kingdom were coming against Sicily. The
king, in the most frequented place in Syracuse, in the forum, —
in the forum at Syracuse, I say, (that no man may suppose I
am bringing forward a charge about which there is any
obscurity, or imagining anything which rests on mere suspi
cion,) weeping, and calling gods and men to witness, began to
cry out that Caius Verres had taken from him a candelabrum
made of jewels, which he was about to send to the Capitol,
and which he wished to be in that most splendid temple as
a memorial to the Roman people of his alliance with and
friendship for them. He said that he did not care about the
other works made of gold and jewels belonging to him which
V. AGAINST VERBES. 429
•were in Verres's hands, but that it was a miserable and scan
dalous thing for this to be taken from him. And that,
although it had long ago been consecrated in the minds and
intentions of himself and his brother, still, that he then,
before that assembled body of Roman citizens, offered, and
gave, and dedicated, and consecrated it to the great and good
Jupiter, and that he invoked Jupiter himself as a witness of
his intention and of his piety.
XXX. What voice, what lungs, what power of mine can
adequately express the indignation due to this atrocity ? The
King Antiochiis, who had lived for two years at Rome in the
sight of all of us, with an almost royal retinue and establish
ment, — though he had been the friend and ally of the Roman
people ; though his father, and his grandfather, and his
ancestors, most ancient and honourable sovereigns, had been
our firmest friends; though he himself is monarch of a most
opulent and extensive kingdom, is turned headlong out of a
province of the Roman people. How do you suppose that
foreign nations will take this? How do you suppose the
news of this exploit of yours will be received in the do
minions of other kings, and in the most distant countries of
the world, when they hear that a king has been insulted by
a praetor of the Roman people in his province ? that a guest
of the Roman people has been plundered 1 a friend and ally
of the Roman people insultingly driven out 1 Know that
your name and that of the Roman people will be an object of
hatred and detestation to foreign nations. If this unheard-of
insolence of Verres is to pass unpunished, all men will think,
especially as the reputation of our men for avarice and covet-
ousness has been very extensively spread, that this is not his
crime only, but that of those who have approved of it. Many
kings, many free cities, many opulent and powerful private
men, cherish intentions of ornamenting the Capitol in such
a way as the dignity of the temple and the reputation of
our empire requires. And if they understand that you show
a proper indignation at this kingly present being intercepted,
they will then think that their zeal and their presents will be
acceptable to you and to the Roman people. But if they hear
that you have been indifferent to the complaint of so great
a king, in so remarkable a case, in one of such bitter in
justice, they will not be so crazy as to spend their time, and
430 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
labour, and expense on things which they do not think will be
acceptable to you.
XXXI. And in this place I appeal to you, 0 Quintus
Catulus;1 for I am speaking of your most honourable and
most splendid monument. You ought to take upon yourself
not only the severity of a judge with respect to this crime,
but something like the vehemence of an enemy and an
accuser. For, through the kindness of the senate and people
of Rome, your honour is connected with that temple. Your
name is consecrated at the same time as that temple in the
everlasting recollection of men. It is by you that this case
is to be encountered ; by you, that this labour is to be under
gone, in order that the Capitol, as it has been restored more
magnificently, may also be adorned more splendidly than it was
originally ; that then that fire may seem to have been sent
from heaven, not to destroy the temple of the great and good
Jupiter, but to demand one for him more noble and more
magnificent. You have heard Quintus Minucius Rufus say,
that King Antiochus stayed at his house while at Syracuse ;
that he knew that this candelabrum had been taken to
Verres's house ; that he knew that it had not been returned.
You heard, and you shall hear from the whole body of Roman
settlers at Syracuse, that they will state to you that in
their hearing it was dedicated and consecrated to the good
and great Jupiter by King Antiochus. If you were not
a judge, and this affair were reported to you, it would be your
especial duty to follow it up ; to reclaim the candelabrum,
and to prosecute this cause. So that I do not doubt what
ought to be your feelings as judge in this prosecution, when
before any one else as judge you ought to be a much more
vehement advocate and accuser than I am.
XXXII. And to you, 0 judges, what can appear more
scandalous or more intolerable than this 1 Shall Verres have
at his own house a candelabrum, made of jewels and gold,
belonging to the great and good Jupiter ? Shall that orna
ment be set out in his house at banquets which will be one
scene of adultery and debauchery, with the brilliancy of which
the temple of the great and good Jupiter ought to glow and
1 The Capitol had been burnt in the civil war between Marius and
Sylla ; and it was now being restored under the superintendence of
Quintus Catulus, to whom that office had been entrusted by the senate.
V. AGAINST VEBEES. 431
to be lighted up ? Shall the decorations of the Capitol be
placed in the house of that most infamous debauchee with the
other ornaments which he has inherited from Chelidon?
What do you suppose will ever be considered sacred or holy
by him, when he does not now think himself liable to punish
ment for such enormous wickedness? who dares to come
into this court of justice, where he cannot, like all others who
are arraigned, pray to the great and good Jupiter, and entreat
help from him? from whom even the immortal gods are
reclaiming their property, before that tribunal which was
appointed for the benefit of men, that they might recover what
had been extorted unjustly from them ? Do we marvel that
Minerva at Athens, Apollo at Delos, Juno at Samos, Diana at
Perga, and that many other gods besides all over Asia and
Greece, were plundered by him, when he could not keep his
hands off the Capitol 1 That temple which private men are
decorating and are intending to decorate out of their own
riches, that Caius Verres would not suffer to be decorated by
a king ; and, accordingly, after he had once conceived this
nefarious wickedness, he considered nothing in all Sicily after
wards sacred or hallowed ; and he behaved himself in his pro
vince for three years in such a manner that war was thought
to have been declared by him, not only against men, but also
against the immortal gods.
XXXIII. Segesta is a very ancient town in Sicily, 0 judges,
which its inhabitants assert was founded by J^neas when he
was flying from Troy and coming to this country. And ac
cordingly the Segestans think that they are connected with
the Roman people, not only by a perpetual alliance and
friendship, but even by some relationship. This town, as the
state of the Segestans was at war with the Carthaginians on
its own account and of its own accord, was formerly stormed
and destroyed by the Carthaginians ; and everything which
could be any ornament to the city was transported from
thence to Carthage. There was among the Segestans a statue
of Diana, of brass, not only invested with the most sacred
character, but also wrought with the most exquisite skill and
beauty. When transferred to Carthage, it only changed its
situation and its worshippers ; it retained its former sanctity.
For on account of its eminent beauty it seemed, even to theil*
enemies, worthy of being most religiously worshipped. Some
432 CICEEO'S ORATIONS.
ages afterwards, Publius Scipio took Carthage, in the third
Punic war ; after which victory, (remark the virtue and care
fulness of the man, so that you may both rejoice at your
national examples of most eminent virtue, and may also judge
the incredible audacity of Yerres, worthy of the greater hatred
by contrasting it with that virtue,) he summoned all the
Sicilians, because he knew that during a long period of time
Sicily had repeatedly been ravaged by the Carthaginians, and
bids them seek for all they had lost, and promises them to
take the greatest pains to ensure the restoration to the
different cities of everything which had belonged to them.
Then those things which had formerly been removed from
Himera, and which I have mentioned before, were restored
to the people of Thermae ; some things were restored to the
Gelans, some to the Agrigentines ; among which was that
noble bull, which that most cruel of all tyrants, Phalaris,
is said to have had, into which he was accustomed to put
men for punishment, and to put fire under. And when Scipio
restored that bull to the Agrigentines, he is reported to
have said, that he thought it reasonable for them to consider
whether it was more advantageous to the Sicilians to be sub
ject to their own princes, or to be under the dominion of the
Roman people, when they had the same thing as a monu
ment of the cruelty of their domestic masters, and of our
liberality.
XXXIV. At that time the same Diana of which I am
speaking is restored with the greatest care to the Segestans.
It is taken back to Segesta ; it is replaced in its ancient
situation, to the greatest joy and delight of all the citizens.
It was placed at Segesta on a very lofty pedestal, on which
was cut in large letters the name of Publius Africanus ; and
a statement was also engraved that " he had restored it after
having taken Carthage." It was worshipped by the citizens ;
it was visited by all strangers ; when I was queestor it was the
very first thing they showed me. It was a very large and
tall statue with a flowing robe, but in spite of its large size it
gave the idea of the age and dress of a virgin ; her arrows
hung from her shoulder, in her left hand she carried her bow,
her right hand held a burning torch. When that enemy of
all sacred things, that violator of all religious scruples saw it,
he began to burn with covetousness and insanity, as if he
V. AGAINST VERRES. 433
himself had been struck with that torch. He commands the
magistrates to take the statue down and give it to him ; and
declares to them that nothing can be more agreeable to him.
But they said that it was impossible for them to do so ; that they
were prevented from doing so, not only by the most extreme
religious reverence, but also by the greatest respect for their
own laws and courts of justice. Then he began to entreat this
favour of them, then to threaten them, then to try and excite
their hopes, then to arouse their fears. They opposed to his
demands the name of Africanus ; they said that it was the
gift of the Roman people ; that they themselves had no right
over a thing which a most illustrious general, having taken a
city of the enemy, had chosen to stand there as a monument
of the victory of the Roman people. As he did not relax in
his demand, but urged it every day with daily increasing
earnestness, the matter was brought before their senate. His
demand raises a violent outcry on all sides. And so at that
time, and at his first arrival at Segesta, it is refused. After
wards, whatever burdens could be imposed on any city in
respect of exacting sailors and rowers, or in levying corn, he
imposed on the Segestans beyond all other cities, and a good
deal more than they could bear. Besides that, he used to
summon their magistrates before him ; he used to send for all
the most noble and most virtuous of the citizens, to hurry them
about with him to all the courts of justice in the province, to
threaten every one of them separately to be the ruin of him,
and to announce to them all in a body that he would utterly
destroy their city. Therefore, at last, the Segestans, subdued
by much ill-treatment and by great fear, resolved to obey the
command of the praetor. With great grief and lamentation
on the part of the whole city, with many tears and wailiugs
on the part of all the men and women, a contract is advertised
for taking down the statue of Diana.
XXXV. See now with what religious reverence it is re
garded. Know, 0 judges, that among all the Segestans none
was found, whether free man or slave, whether citizen or
foreigner, to dare to touch that statue. Know that some
barbarian workmen were brought from Lilybseum ; they at
length, ignorant of the whole business, and of the religious
character of the image, agreed to take it down for a sum of
money, and took it down. And when it was being taken out
F p
434 CICEEOS ORATIONS.
of the city, how great was the concourse of women ! how great
was the weeping of the old men ! some of whom even recol
lected that day when that same Diana being brought back to
Segesta from Carthage, had announced to them, by its return,
the victory of the Roman people. How different from that
time did this day seem ! then the general of the Roman
people, a most illustrious man, was bringing back to the
Segestans the gods of their fathers, recovered from an enemy's
city ; now a most base and profligate praetor of the same
Roman people, was taking away, with the most nefarious
wickedness, those very same gods from a city of his allies.
What is more notorious throughout all Sicily than that all
the matrons and virgins of Segesta came together when Diana
was being taken out of their city 1 that they anointed her with
precious unguents 1 that they crowned her with chaplets and
flowers ? that they attended her to the borders of their ter
ritory with frankincense and burning perfumes'? If at the
time you, by reason of your covetousness and audacity, did
not, while in command, fear these religious feelings of the
population, do you not fear them now, at a time of such peril
to yourself and to your children? What man, against the
will of the immortal gods, or what god, when you so trample
on all the religious reverence due to them, do you think will
come to your assistance ? Has that Diana inspired you, while
in quiet and at leisure, with no religious awe ; — she, who
though she had seen two cities, in which she was placed,
stormed and burnt, was yet twice preserved from the flames
and weapons of two wars ; she who, though she changed her
situation owing to the victory of the Carthaginians, yet did
not lose her holy character ; and who, by the valour of Publius
Africanus, afterwards recovered her old worship, together with
her old situation ? And when this crime had been executed,
as the pedestal was empty, and the name of Publius Africanus
carved on it, the affair appeared scandalous and intolerable to
every one, that not only was religion trampled on, but also
that Caius Verres had taken away the glory of the exploits,
the memorial of the virtues, the monument of the victory of
Publius Africanus, that most gallant of men. But when he
was told afterwards of the pedestal and the inscription, he
thought that men would forget the whole affair, if he took
away the pedestal too, which was serving as a sort of signpost
V. AGAINST VERRES. 435
to point out his crime. And so, by his command, the Segestans
contracted to take away the pedestal too ; and the terms of
that contract were read to you from the public registers of the
Segestans, at the former pleading.
XXXVI. Now, 0 Publius Scipio, I appeal to you ; to you, I
say, a most virtuous and accomplished youth ; from you I re
quest and demand that assistance which is due to your family
and to your name. Why do you take the part of that man who
has embezzled the credit and honour of your family ? Why do
you wish him to be defended ? Why am I undertaking what is
properly your business? Why am I supporting a burden
which ought to fall on you 1 — Marcus Tullius is reclaiming
the monuments of Publius Africanus ; Publius Scipio is de
fending the man who took them away. Though it is a prin
ciple handed down to us from our ancestors, for every one to
defend the monuments of his ancestors, in such a way as not
even to allow them to be decorated by one of another name,
will you take the part of that man who is not charged
merely with having in some degree spoilt the view of the
monuments of Publius Scipio, but who has entirely removed
and destroyed them 1 Who then, in the name of the im
mortal gods, will defend the memory of Publius Scipio now
that he is dead ? who will defend the memorials and evidences
of his valour, if you desert and abandon them ; and not only
allow them to be plundered and taken away, but even defend
their plunderer and destroyer? The Segestans are present,
your clients, the allies and friends of the Roman people.
They inform you that Publius Africanus, when he had de
stroyed Carthage, restored the image of Diana to their
ancestors ; and that was set up among the Segestans and
dedicated in the name of that general ; — that Verres has had
it taken down and carried away, and as far as that is con
cerned, has utterly effaced and extinguished the name of
Publius Scipio. They entreat and pray you to restore the
object of their worship to them, its proper credit and glory
to your own family, so enabling them by your assistance to
recover from the house of a robber, what they recovered from
the city of their enemies by the beneficence of Publius
Africanus.
XXXVIT. What can you reply to them with honour, or
what can they do but implore the aid of you and your good
FF2
43 G CICERO'S ORATIONS.
faith ? They ai'e present, they do implore it. You, 0 Publiiis,
can protect the honour of your family renown ; you can, you
have every advantage which either fortune or nature ever
gives to men. I do not wish to anticipate you in gathering
the fruit that belongs to you ; I am not covetous of the glory
which ought to belong to another. It does not correspond to
the modesty of my disposition, while Publius Scipio, a most
promising young man, is alive and well, to put myself forward
as the defender and advocate of the memorials of Publius
Scipio. Wherefore, if you will undertake the advocacy of your
family renown, it will behove me not only to be silent about
your monuments, but even to be glad that the fortune of Publius
Africanus, though dead, is such, that his honour is defended
by those who are of the same family as himself, and that it
requires no adventitious assistance. But if your friendship
with that man is an obstacle to you, — if you think that this
thing which I demand of you is not so intimately connected
with your duty, — then I, as your locum tenens, will succeed to
your office, I will undertake that business which I have
thought not to belong to me. Let that proud aristocracy
give up complaining that the Roman people willingly gives,
and at all times has given, honours to new and diligent men.
It is a foolish complaint that virtue should be of the greatest
influence in that city which by its virtue governs all nations.
Let the image of Publius Africanus be in the houses of other
men ; let heroes now dead be adorned with virtue and glory.
He was such a man, he deserved so well of the Roman people,
that he deserves to be recommended to the affection, not of
one single family, but of the whole state. And so it partly
does belong to me also to defend his honours with all my
power, because I belong to that city which he rendered great,
and illustrious, and renowned; and especially, because I
practise, to the utmost of my power, those virtues in which
he was preeminent, — equity, industry, temperance, the pro
tection of the unhappy, and hatred of the dishonest ; a rela
tionship in pursuits and habits which is almost as important
as that of which you boast, the relationship of name and
family.
XXXVIII. I reclaim from you, 0 Verres, the monument
of Publius Africanus ; I abandon the cause of the Sicilians,
which I undertook ; let there be no trial of you for extortion
V. AGAINST VERRES. 437
at present ; never mind the injuries of the Segestans j let the
pedestal of Publius Africanus be restored ; let the name of
that invincible commander be engraved on it anew ; let that
most beautiful statue, which was recovered when Carthage
was taken, be replaced. It is not I, the defender of the Sici
lians, — it is not I, your prosecutor, — they are not the Segestans
who demand this of you ; but he who has taken on himself
the defence and the preservation of the renown and glory of
Publius Africanus. I am not afraid of not being able to give
a good account of my performance of this duty to Publius
Servilius the judge ; who, as he has performed great exploits,
and raised very many monuments of his good deeds, and has
a natural anxiety aboxit them, will be glad, forsooth, to leave
them an object of care and protection not only to his own
posterity, but to ail brave men and good citizens ; and not as
a mark for the plunder of rogues. I am not afraid of its
displeasing you, 0 Quiutus Catulus, to whom the most
superb and splendid monument in the whole world belongs,
that there should be as many guardians of such monuments
as possible, or that all good men should think it was a part
of their duty to defend the glory of another. And indeed I
am so far moved by the other robberies and atrocities of that
fellow, as to think them worthy of great reproof ; but that
might be sufficient for them. But in this instance I am
roused to such indignation, that nothing appears to me pos
sible to be more scandalous or more intolerable. Shall Verres
adorn his house, full of adultery, full of debauchery, full of
infamy, with the monuments of Africanus? Shall Verres
place the memorial of that most temperate and religious man,
the image of the ever virgin Diana, in that house in which
the iniquities of harlots and pimps are incessantly being
practised '?
XXXIX. But is this the only monument of Africanus
which you have violated 1 What ! did you take away from
the people of Tyndaris an image of Mercury most beautifully
made, and placed there by the beneficence of the same Scipio?
And how 1 0 ye immortal gods ! How audaciously, how
infamously, how shamelessly did you do so ! You have lately,
0 judges, heard the deputies from Tyndaris, most honourable
men, and the chief men of that city, say that the Mercury,
which in their sacred anniversaries was worshipped among
438 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
them with the extremest religious reverence, which Publius
Africanus, after he had taken Carthage, had given to the
Tyndaritans, not only as a monument of his victory, but as a
memorial and evidence of their loyalty to and alliance with
the Roman people, had been taken away by the violence, and
wickedness, and arbitrary power of this man ; who, when
he first came to their city, in a moment, as if it were not
only a becoming, but an indispensable thing to be done, —
as if the senate had ordered it and the Roman people had
sanctioned it, — in a moment, I say, ordered them to take
the statue down and to transport it to Messana. And as this
appeared a scandalous thing to those who were present and
who heard it, it was not persevered in by him during the first
period of his visit ; but when he departed, he ordered Sopater,
their chief magistrate, whose statement you have heard, to take
it down. When he refused, he threatened him violently ; and
then he left the city. The magistrate refers the matter to
the senate ; there is a violent outcry on all sides. To make
my story short, some time afterwards he comes to that city
again. Immediately he asks about the statue. He is answered
that the senate will not allow it to be removed ; that capital
punishment is threatened to any one who should touch it
without the orders of the senate : the impiety of removing is
also urged. Then says he, " What do you mean by talking
to me of impiety 1 or about punishment? or about the senate?
I will not leave you alive ; you shall be scourged to death if the
statue is not given up." Sopater with tears reports the matter
to the senate a second time, and relates to them the covet-
ousness and the threats of Verres. The senate gives Sopater
no answer, but breaks up in agitation and perplexity. Sopater,
being summoned by the praetor's messenger, informs him of
the state of the case, and says that it is absolutely impossible.
XL. And all these things (for I do not think that I ought
to omit any particular of his impudence) were done openly in
the middle of the assembly, while Verres was sitting on his
chair of office, in a lofty situation. It was the depth of
winter; the weather, as you heard Sopater himself state,
was bitterly cold ; heavy rain was falling ; when that fellow
orders the lictors to throw Sopater headlong down from the
portico on which he himself was sitting, and to strip him
naked. The command was scarcely out of his mouth, before
V. AGAINST VEREES. 439
you might have seen him stripped and surrounded by the
lictors. All thought that the unhappy and innocent man
was going to be scourged. They were mistaken. Do you
think that Verres would scourge without any reason an ally
and friend of the Roman people 1 He is not so wicked. All
vices are not to be found in that man ; he was never cruel.
He treated the man with great gentleness and clemency. In
the middle of the forum, there are some statues of the Mar-
celli, as there are in most of the other towns of Sicily ; out of
these he selected the statue of Caius Marcellus, whose services
to that city and to the whole province were most recent and
most important. On that statue he orders Sopater, a man of
noble birth in his city, and at that very time invested with
the chief magistracy, to be placed astride and bound to it.
What torture he suffered when he was bound naked in the
open air, in the rain and in the cold, must be manifest to
every body. Nor did he put an end to this insult and barba
rity, till the people and the whole multitude, moved by the
atrocity of his conduct and by pity for his victim, compelled
the senate by their outcries to promise him that statue of
Mercury. They cried out that the immortal gods themselves
would avenge the act, and that in the meantime it was not
fit that an innocent man should be murdered. Then the
senate comes to him in a body, and promises him the statue.
And so Sopater is taken down scarcely alive from the statue
of Marcellus, to which he had almost become frozen. I cannot
adequately accuse that man if I were to wish to do so ; it
requires not only genius, but an extraordinary amount of skill.
XLI. This appears to be a single crime, this of the Tynda-
ritan Mercury, and it is brought forward by me as a single
one ; but there are many crimes contained in it — only I do
not know how to separate and distinguish them. It is a case
of money extorted, for he took away from the allies a statue
worth a large sum of money. It is a case of embezzlement,
because he did not hesitate to appropriate a public statue be
longing to the Roman people, taken from the spoils of the
enemy, placed where it was in the name of our general. It is a
case of treason, because he dared to overturn and to carry away
monuments of our empire, of our glory, and of our exploits.
It is a case of impiety, because he violated the most solemn
principles of religion. It is a case of inhumanity, because
440 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
he invented a new and extraordinary description of punish
ment for an innocent man, an ally and friend of our nation.
But what the other crime is, that I am unable to say; I know
not by what name to call the crime which he committed with
respect to the statue of Caius Marcellus. What is the meaning
of it? Is it because he was the patron of the Sicilians?
What then ? What has that to do with it ? Ought that fact
to have had influence to procure assistance, or to bring
disaster on his clients and friends? Was it your object to
show that patrons were no protection against your violence ?
Who is there who would not be aware that there is greater
power in the authority of a bad man who is present, than in
the protection of good men who are absent? Or do you
merely wish to prove by this conduct, your unprecedented
insolence, and pride, and obstinacy ? You thought, I imagine,
that you were taking something from, the dignity of the
Marcelli ? And therefore now the Marcelli are not the patrons
of the Sicilians. Verres has been substituted in their place.
What virtue or what dignity did you think existed in you,
that you should attempt to transfer to yourself, and to take
away from these most trusty and most ancient patrons, so illus
trious a body of clients as that splendid province ? Can you
with your stupidity, and worthlessness, and laziness defend the
cause, I will not say of all Sicily, but even of one, the very
meanest of the Sicilians? Was the statue of Marcellus to
serve you for a pillory for the clients of the Marcelli ? Did
you out of his honour seek for punishments for those very
men who had held him in honour ? What followed ? What did
you think would happen to your statues ? was it that which
did happen ? For the people of Tyndaris threw down the
statue of Verres, which he had ordered to be erected in his
own honour near the Marcelli, and even on a higher pedestal,
the very moment that they heard that a successor had^been
appointed to him.
XLII. The fortune of the Sicilians has then given you
Caius Marcellus for a judge, so that we may now surrender
you, fettered and bound, to appease the injured sanctity of
him to whose statue Sicilians were bound while you were
praetor. And in the first place, 0 judges, that man said that
the people of Tyndaris had sold this statue to Caius Marcellus
^Eserninus, who is here present. And he hoped that Caius
V. AGAINST VERRES. 441
Marcellus himself would assert thus much for his sake.,
though it never seemed to me to be very likely that a young
man born in that rank, the patron of Sicily, would lend his
name to that fellow to enable him to transfer his guilt to
another. But still I made such provision, and took such pre
caution against every possible bearing of the case, that if any
one had been found who was ever so anxious to take the gxiilt
and crime of Verres upon himself, still he would not have
taken anything by his motion, for I brought down to court
such witnesses, and I had with me such written documents,
that it could not have been possible to have entertained a
doubt about that man's actions. There are public documents
to prove that that Mercury was transported to Messana at
the expense of the state. They state at what expense ; and
that a man named Poleas was ordered by the public authority
to superintend the business — what more would you have 1
Where is he 1 He is close at hand, he is a witness, by the
command of Sopater the Proagorus. — Who is he 1 The man
who was bound to the statue. What 1 where is he ? He is
a witness — you have seen the man, and you have heard his
statement. Demetrius, the master of the gymnastic school,
superintended the pulling down of the statue, because he was
appointed to manage that business. What 1 is it we who say
this ? No, he is present himself; moreover, that Verres him
self lately promised at Rome, that he would restore that
statue to the deputies, if the evidence already given in the
affair were removed, and if security were given that the
Tyndaritans would not give evidence against him, has been
stated before you by Zosippus and Hismenias, most noble
men, and the chief men of the city of Tyndaris.
XLIII. What 1 did you not also at Agrigentum take
away a monument of the same Publius Scipio, a most beau
tiful statue of Apollo, on whose thigh there was the name of
Myron, inscribed in diminutive silver letters, out of that most
holy temple of ^Esculapius ? And when, 0 judges, he had
privily committed that atrocity, and when in that most nefari
ous crime and robbery he had employed some of the most
worthless men of the city as his guides and assistants, the
whole city was greatly excited. For the Agrigentines were
regretting at the same time the kindness of Africanus, and a
national object of their worship, and an ornament of their
44^ CICERO S ORATIONS.
city, and a record of their victory, and an evidence of their
alliance with us. And therefore a command is imposed on
those men who were the chief men of the city, and a charge
is given to the quaestors and sediles to keep watch by night
over the sacred edifices. And, indeed, at Agrigentum, (I
imagine, on account of the great number and virtue of these
men, and because great numbers of Roman citizens, gallant
and intrepid and honourable men, live and trade in that town
among the Agrigentines in the greatest harmony,) he did not
dare openly to carry off, or even to beg for the things that
took his fancy. There is a temple of Hercules at Agrigentum,
not far from the forum, considered very holy and greatly
reverenced among the citizens. In it there is a brazen image
of Hercules himself, than which I cannot easily tell where
I have seen anything finer ; (although I am not very much
of a judge of those matters, though I have seen plenty of
specimens;) so greatly venerated among them, 0 judges, that
his mouth and his chin are a little worn away, because men
in addressing their prayers and congratulations to him, are
accustomed not only to worship the statue, but even to kiss
it. While Verres was at Agrigentum, on a sudden, one stormy
night, a great assemblage of armed slaves, and a great attack
on this temple by them, takes place, under the leading of
Timarchides. A cry is raised by the watchmen and guardians
of the temple. And, at first, when they attempted to resist
them and to defend the temple, they are driven back much
injured with sticks and bludgeons. Afterwards, when the
bolts were forced open, and the doors dashed in, they endea
vour to pull down the statue and to overthrow it with levers ;
meantime, from the outcries of the keepers, a report got
abroad over the whole city, that the national gods were being
stormed, not by the unexpected invasion of enemies, or by
the sudden irruption of pirates, but that a well armed and
fully equipped band of fugitive slaves from the house and
retinue of the prsetor had attacked them. No one in Agri
gentum was either so advanced in age, or so infirm in
strength, as not to rise up on that night, awakened by that
news, and to seize whatever weapon chance put into his hands.
So in a very short time men are assembled at the temple from
every part of the city. Already, for more than an hour,
numbers of men had been labouring at pulling down that
V. AGAINST VEREES. 443
statue ; and all that time it gave no sign of being shaken in
any part; while some, putting levers under it, were endeavour
ing to throw it down, and others, having bound cords to all
its limbs, were trying to pull it towards them. On a sudden
all the Agrigentines collect together at the place ; stones are
thrown in numbers ; the nocturnal soldiers of that illustrious
commander run away — but they take with them two very
small statues, in order not to return to that robber of all holy
things entirely empty-handed. The Sicilians are never in such
distress as not to be able to say something facetious and neat ;
as they did on this occasion. And so they said that this
enormous boar had a right to be accounted one of the labours
of Hercules, no less than the other boar of Erymanthus.
XLIV. The people of Assorum, gallant and loyal men,
afterwards imitated this brave conduct of the Agrigentines,
though they did not come of so powerful or so distinguished a
city. There is a river called Chrysas, which flows through
the territories of Assorum. Chrysas, among that people, is
considered a god, and is worshipped with the greatest rever
ence. His temple is in the fields, near the road which goes
from Assorum. to Enna. In it there is an image of Chrysas,
exquisitely made of marble. He did not dare to beg that of
the Assorians on account of the extraordinary sanctity of that
temple; so he entrusts the business to Tlepolemus and Hiero.
They, having prepared and armed a body of men, come by
night; they break in the doors of the temple ; the keepers of(
the temple and the guardians hear them in time. A trumpet,
the signal of alarm well known to all the neighbourhood, is
sounded; men come in from the country, Tlepolemus is
turned out and put to flight ; nor was anything missed out of
the temple of Chrysas except one very diminutive image of
brass. There is a temple of the mighty mother Cybele at
Enguinum, for I must now not only mention each instance
with the greatest brevity, but I must even pass over a great
many, in order to come to the greater and more remarkable
thefts and atrocities of this sort which this man has com
mitted. In this temple that same Publius Scipio, a man.
excelling in every possible good quality, had placed breast
plates and helmets of brass, of Corinthian workmanship, and
some huge ewers of a similar description, and wrought with
the same exquisite skill, and had inscribed his own name upon
444 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
them. Why should I make any more statements or utter
any further complaints about that man's conduct 1 He took
away, 0 judges, every one of those things. He left nothing
in that most holy temple except the traces of the religion he
had trampled on, and the name of Publius Scipio. The spoils
won from the enemy, the memorials of our commanders, the
ornaments and decorations of our temples, will hereafter, when
these illustrious names are lost, be reckoned in the furniture
and appointments of Caius Verres. Are you, forsooth, the
only man who delights in Corinthian vases? Are you the
best judge in the world of the mixture of that celebrated
bronze, and of the delicate tracery of that work 1 Did not the
great Scipio, that most learned and accomplished man, under
stand it too ? But do you, a man without one single virtue,
without education, without natural ability, and without any
information, understand them and value them 1 Beware lest
he be seen to have surpassed you and those other men who
wished to be thought so elegant, not only in temperance, but
in judgment and taste ; for it was because he thoroughly
understood how beautiful they were, that he thought that
they were made, not for the luxury of men, but for the orna
menting of temples and cities, in order that they might
appear to our posterity to be holy and sacred monuments.
XLV. Listen, also, 0 judges, to the man's singular covet-
ousness, audacity and madness, especially in polluting those
sacred things, which not only may not be touched with the
hands, but which may not be violated even in thought. There
is a shrine of Ceres among the Catenans of the same holy
nature as the one at Rome, and worshipped as the goddess is
worshipped among foreign nations, and in almost every coun
try in the world. In the inmost part of that shrine there
was an extremely ancient statue of Ceres, as to which men
were not only ignorant of what sort it was, but even of its
existence. For the entrance into that shrine does not belong
to men, the sacred ceremonies are accustomed to be per
formed by women and virgins. Verres's slaves stole this
statue by night out of that most holy and most ancient
temple. The next day the priestesses of Ceres, and the
female attendants of that temple, women of great age, noble
and of proved virtue, report the affair to their magistrates.
It appeared to all a most bitter, and scandalous, and miser-
V. AGAINST VERRES. 445
able business. Then that man, influenced by the atrocity of
the action, in order that all suspicion of that crime might be
removed from himself, employs some one connected with him
by ties of hospitality to find a man whom he might accuse
of having done it, and bids him take care that he be con
victed of the accusation, so that he himself might not be
subject to the charge. The matter is not delayed. For
when he had departed from Catina, an information is laid
against a certain slave. He is accused ; false witnesses are
suborned against him ; the whole senate sits in judgment on
the affair, according to the laws of the Catenans. The priest
esses are summoned ; they are examined secretly in the
senate-house, and asked what had been done, and how they
thought that the statue had been carried off. They answer that
the servants of the praetor had been seen in the temple.*' The
matter, which previously had not been very obscure, began
to be clear enough by the evidence of the priestesses. The
judges deliberate ; the innocent slave is acquitted by every
vote, in order that you may the more easily be able to con
demn this man by all your votes. For what is it that you
ask, 0 Verres ? What do you hope for 1 What do you ex
pect 1 What god or man do you think will come to your
assistance 1 Did you send slaves to that place to plunder
a temple, where it was not lawful for free citizens to go, not
even for the purpose of praying 1 Did you not hesitate to lay
violent hands on those things from which the laws of religion
enjoined you to keep even your eyes ? Although it was not
even because you were charmed by the eye that you were led
into this wicked and nefarious conduct ; for you coveted
what you had never seen. You took a violent fancy, I say,
to that which you had not previously beheld. From your
ears did you conceive this covetousness, so violent that no
fear, no religious scruple, no power of the gods, no regard for
the opinion of men could restrain it. Oh ! but you had
heard of it, I suppose, from some good man, from some good
authority. How could you have done that, when you could
never have heard of it from any man at all 1 You heard of
it, therefore, from a woman ; since men could not have seen it,
nor known of it. What sort of woman do you think that she
must have been, 0 judges ? What a modest woman must
she have been to converse with Verres ! What a pious woman,
446 CICBKO'S ORATIONS.
to show him a plan for robbing a temple ! But it is no great
wonder if those sacred ceremonies which are performed by
the most extreme chastity of virgins and matrons were
violated by his adultery and profligacy.
XLVI. What, then, are we to think? Is this the only
thing that he began to desire from mere hearing, when he
had never seen it himself? No, there were many other
things besides ; of which I will select the plundering of that
most noble and ancient temple, concerning which you heard
witnesses give their evidence at the former pleading. Now,
I beseech you, listen to the same story once more, and attend
carefully as you hitherto have done. There is an island
called Melita, 0 judges, separated from Sicily by a suffici
ently wide and perilous navigation, in which there is a town
of the same name, to which Verres never went, though it
was for three years a manufactory to him for weaving women's
garments. Not far from that town, on a promontory, is an
ancient temple of Juno, which was always considered so
holy, that it was not only always kept inviolate and sacred
in those Punic wars, which in those regions were carried on
almost wholly by the naval forces, but even by the bands of
pirates which ravage those seas. Moreover, it has been handed
down to us by tradition, that once, when the fleet of King
Masinissa was forced to put into these ports, the king's lieu
tenant took away some ivory teeth of an incredible size out
of the temple, and carried them into Africa, and gave them
to Masinissa ; that at first the king was delighted with the
present, but afterwards, when he heard where they had come
from, he immediately sent trustworthy men in a quinquereme
to take those teeth back ; and that there was engraved on
them in Punic characters, " that Masinissa the king had
accepted them ignorantly ; but that, when he knew the
truth, he had taken care that they should be replaced and
restored." There was besides an immense quantity of ivory,
and many ornaments, among which were some ivory victories
of ancient workmanship, and wrought with exquisite skill.
Not to dwell too long on this, he took care to have all these
things taken down and carried off at one swoop by means of the
slaves of the Venus whom he had sent thither for that purpose.
XLVII. 0 ye immortal gods ! what sort of man is it
that I am accusing ? Who is it that I am prosecuting
V. AGAINST VERRES. 447
according to our laws, and by this regular process ? Concern
ing whom is it that you are going to give your judicial
decision? The deputies from Melita sent by the public
authority of their state, say that the shrine of Juno was
plundered ; that that man left nothing in that most holy
temple ; that that place, to which the fleets of enemies often
came, where pirates are accustomed to winter almost every
year, and which no pirate ever violated, no enemy ever
attacked before, was so plundered by that single man, that
nothing whatever was left in it. What, then, now are we to
say of him as a defendant, of me as an accuser, of this tri
bunal 1 Is he proved guilty of grave crimes, or is he brought
into this court on mere suspicion ? Gods are proved to have
been carried off, temples to have been plundered, cities to
have been stripped of everything. And of those actions he
has left himself no power of denying one, no plea for de
fending one. In every particular he is convicted by me ;
he is detected by the witnesses ; he is overwhelmed by his
own admissions ; he is caught in the evident commission of
guilt ; and even now he remains here, and in silence recog
nises his own crimes as I enumerate them.
I seem to myself to have been too long occupied with one
class of crime. I am aware, 0 judges, that I have to
encounter the weariness of your ears and eyes at such
a repetition of similar cases ; I will, therefore, pass over many
instances. But I entreat you, 0 judges, in the name of the
immortal gods, in the name of these very gods of whose
honour and worship we have been so long speaking, refresh
your minds so as to attend to what I am about to mention,
while I bring forward and detail to you that crime of his by
which the whole province was roused, and in speaking of
which you will pardon me if I appear to go back rather far,
and trace the earliest recollections of the religious observ
ances in question. The importance of the affair will not
allow me to pass over the atrocity of his guilt with brevity.
XLVIII. It is an old opinion, 0 judges, which can be
proved from the most ancient records and monuments of the
Greeks, that the whole island of Sicily was consecrated to
Ceres and Libera. Not only did all other nations think so,
but the Sicilians themselves were so convinced of it, that it
appeared a deeply rooted and innate belief in their minds.
448 CICEEO'S ORATIONS.
For they believe that these goddesses were born in these dis
tricts, and that corn was first discovered in this land, and that
Libera was carried off, the same goddess whom they call
Proserpine, from a grove in the territory of Enna, a place
which, because it is situated in the centre of the island, is
called the navel of Sicily. And when Ceres wished to seek
her and trace her out, she is said to have lit her torches at
those names which burst out at the summit of ^Etna, and
carrying these torches before her, to have wandered over the
whole earth. But Enna, where those things which I am
speaking of are said to have been done, is in a high and
lofty situation, on the top of which is a large level plain, and
springs of water which are never dry. And the whole of the
plain is cut off and separated, so as to be difficult of ap
proach. Around it are many lakes and groves, and beautiful
flowers at every season of the year ; so that the place itself
appears to testify to that abduction of the virgin which we
have heard of from our boyhood.1 Near it is a cave turned
towards the north, of unfathomable depth, where they say
that Father Pluto suddenly rose out of the earth in his
chariot, and carried the virgin off from that spot, and that
on a sudden, at no great distance from Syracuse, he went
down beneath the earth, and that immediately a lake sprang
up in that place ; and there to this day the Syracusans cele
brate anniversary festivals with a most numerous assemblage
of both sexes.
XLIX. On account of the antiquity of this belief, because
in those places the traces and almost the cradles of those
gods are found, the worship of Ceres of Enna prevails to a
wonderful extent, both in private and in public over all
Sicily. In truth, many prodigies often attest her influence
and divine powers. Her present help is often brought to
many in critical circumstances, so that this island appears not
only to be loved, but also to be watched over and protected
by her. Nor is it the Sicilians only, but even all other tribes
and nations greatly worship Ceres of Enna. In truth, if
initiation into those sacred mysteries of the Athenians is
1 We have the same ad vantage as, or rather greater advantages than
Cicero in this respect ; for we have heard the story from our boyhood
told far more beautifully than any Sicilian ever imagined it. See Ovid,
Fasti, iv. 419.
V. AGAINST VERRES. 449
sought for with the greatest avidity, to which people Ceres is
said to have come in that long wandering of hers, and then
she brought them corn. How much greater reverence ought
to be paid to her by those people among whom it is certain
that she was born, and first discovered corn. And, therefore,
in the time of our fathers, at a most disastrous and critical
time to the republic, when, after the death of Tiberius Grac
chus, there was a fear that great dangers were portended to
the state by various prodigies, in the consulship of Publiua
Mucius and Lucius Calpurnius, recourse was had to the Sibyl
line books, in which it was found set down, " that the most
ancient Ceres ought to be appeased." Then, priests of the
Roman people, selected from the most honourable college of
decemvirs, although there was in our own city a most beau
tiful and magnificent temple of Ceres, nevertheless went as
far as Enna. For such was the authority and antiquity of
the reputation for holiness of that place, that when they
went thither, they seemed to be going not to a temple of
Ceres, but to Ceres herself. I will not din this into your
ears any longer. I have been some time afraid that my speech
may appear unlike the usual fashion of speeches at trials,
unlike the daily method of speaking. This I say, that this
very Ceres, the most ancient, the most holy, the very chief of
all sacred things which are honoured by every people, and in
every nation, was carried off by Caius Verres from her temple
and her home. Ye who have been to Enna, have seen a
statue of Ceres made of marble, and in the other temple
a statue of Libera. They are very colossal and very beau
tiful, but not exceedingly ancient. There was one of brass,
of moderate size, but extraordinary workmanship, with the
torches in its hands, very ancient, by far the most ancient
of all those statues which are in that temple ; that he carried
off, and yet he was not content with that. Before the temple
of Ceres, in an open and an imcovered place, there are two
statues, one of Ceres, the other of Triptolemus, very beautiful,
and of colossal size. Their beauty was their danger, but
their size their safety ; because the taking of them down and
carrying them off appeared very difficult. But in the right
hand cf ^"--^ there stood a beautifully wrought image of
Victory ; and this he had wrenched out of the hand of Ceres
and carried off.
GO
450 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
L. What now must be his feelings at the recollection of
his crimes, when I, at the mere enumeration of them, am not
only roused to indignation in my mind, but even shudder
over my whole body ? For thoughts of that temple, of that
place, of that holy religion come into my mind. Everything
seems present before my eyes, — the day on which, when
I had arrived at Enna, the priests of Ceres came to meet me
with garlands of vervain, and with fillets ; the concourse of
citizens, among whom, while I was addressing them, there
was;such weeping and groaning that the most bitter grief
seemed to have taken possession of the whole. They did not
complain of the absolute way in which the tenths were levied,
nor of the plunder of property, nor of the iniquity of tribu
nals, nor of that man's unhallowed lusts, nor of his violence,
nor of the insults by which they had been oppressed and
overwhelmed. It was the divinity of Ceres, the antiquity of
their sacred observances, the holy veneration due to their
temple, which they wished should have atonement made to
them by the punishment of that most atrocious and auda
cious man. They said that they could endure everything
elset; that to everything else they were indifferent. This
indignation of theirs was so great, that you might suppose
that Verres, like another king of hell, had come to Enna and
had carried off, not Proserpine, but Ceres herself. And, in
truth, that city does not appear to be a city, but a shrine
of Ceres. The people of Enna think that Ceres dwells among
them ; so that they appear to me not to be citizens of that
city, but to be all priests, to be all ministers and officers of
Ceres. Did you dare to take away out of Enna the statue of
Ceres ? Did you attempt at Enna to wrench Victory out of
the hand of Ceres ? to tear one goddess from the other ? —
nothing of which those men dared to violate, or even to
touch, whose qualities were all more akin to wickedness than
to religion. For while Publius Popillius and Publius Rupilius
were consuls, slaves, runaway slaves, and barbarians, and
enemies, were in possession of that place ; but yet the slaves
were not so much slaves to their own masters, as you are to
your passions ; nor did the runaways flee from their masters
as far as you flee from all laws and from all right ; nor were
the barbarians as barbarous in language and in race as you
are in your nature and your habits ; nor were the enenves
V, AGAINST VEBRES. 401
as much enemies to men as you are to the immortal gods.
How, then, can a man beg for any mercy who has surpassed
slaves in baseness, runaway slaves in rashness, barbarians in
wickedness, and enemies in inhumanity 1
LI. You heard Theodoras and Numinius and Nicasio,
deputies from Enna, say, in the name of their state, that they
had this commission from their fellow-citizens, to go to
Vcrres, and to demand from him the restoration of the
statues of Ceres and of Victory. And if they obtained it,
then they were to adhere to the ancient customs of the state
of Enna, not to give any public testimony against him,
although he had oppressed Sicily, since these were the princi
ples which they had received from their ancestors. But if
he did not restore them, then they were to go before the
tribunal, to inform the judges of the injuries they had re
ceived, but, far above all things, to complain of the insults to
their religion. And, in the name of the immortal gods,
I entreat you, 0 judges, do not you despise, do not you scorn
or think lightly of their complaints. The injuries done to
our allies are the present question ; the authority of the
laws is at stake ; the reputation and the honesty of our
courts of justice is at stake. And though all these are great
considerations, yet this is the greatest of all, — the whole pro
vince is so imbued with religious feeling, such a superstitious
dread arising out of that man's conduct has seized upon the
minds of all the Sicilians, that whatever public or private
misfortunes happen, appear to befal them because of that
man's wickedness. You have heard the Centuripans, the
Agyrians, the Catenans, the Herbitans, the Ennans, and
many other deputies say, in the name of their states, how
great was the solitude in their districts, how great the devas
tation, how universal the flight of the cultivators of the soil ;
how deserted, how uncultivated, how desolate every place
was. And although there are many and various injuries done
by that man to which these things are owing, still this one
cause, in the opinion of the Sicilians, is the most weighty of
all ; for, because of the insults offered to Ceres, they believe
that all the crops and gifts of Ceres have perished in these
districts. Bring remedies, 0 judges, to the insulted religion
of the allies ; preserve your own, for this is not a foreign
religion, nor one with which you have no concern. But even
GG2
452 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
if it were, if you were unwilling to adopt it yourselves, still
you ought to be willing to inflict heavy punishment on the
man who had violated it. But now that the common religion
of all nations is attacked in this way, now that these sacred
observances are violated which our ancestors adopted and
imported from foreign countries, and have honoured ever
since, — sacred observances, which they called Greek observ
ances, as in truth they were, — even if we were to wish to be
indifferent and cold about these matters, how could we be so ?
LI I. I will mention the sacking of one city, also, and that
the most beautiful and highly decorated of all, the city of
Syracuse. And I will produce my proofs of that, 0 judges,
in order at length to conclude and bring to an end the whole
history of offences of this sort. There is scarcely any one of
you who has not often heard how Syracuse was taken by
Marcus Marcellus, and who has not sometimes also read the
account in our annals. Compare this peace with that war ;
the visit of this prsetor with the victory of that general ; the
debauched retinue of the one with the invincible army of the
other ; the lust of Verres with the continence of Marcellus ; —
and you will say that Syracuse was built by the man who
took it ; was taken by the man who received it well esta
blished and nourishing. And for the present I omit those
things which will be mentioned, and have been already men
tioned by me in an irregular manner in different parts of
my speech — that the market-place of the Syracusans, which
at the entrance of Marcellus was preserved unpolluted by
slaughter, on the arrival of Verres overflowed with the blood
of innocent Sicilians ; that the harbour of the Syracusans,
which at that time was shut against both our fleets and those
of the Carthaginians, was, while Verres was praetor, open to
Cilician pirates, or even to a single piratical galley. I say
nothing of the violence offered to people of noble birth, of
the ravishment of matrons, atrocities which then, when the
city was taken, were not committed, neither through the
hatred of enemies, nor through military licence, nor through
the customs of war or the rights of victory. I pass over,
I say, all these things which were done by that man for three
whole years. Listen rather to acts which are connected with
those matters of which I have hitherto been speaking. You
have often heard that the city of Syracuse is the greatest of
V. AGAINST VERRES. 453
the Greek cities, and the most beautiful of all. It is so,
0 judges, as it is said to be ; for it is so by its situation,
which is strongly fortified, and which is on every side by
which you can approach it, whether by sea or land, very
beautiful to behold. And it has harbours almost enclosed
within the walls, and in the sight of the whole city ; harbours
which have different entrances, but which meet together, and
are connected at the other end. By their union a part of the
town, which is called the island, being separated from the rest
by a narrow arm of the sea, is again joined to and connected
with the other by a bridge.
LIIL That city is so great that it may be said to consist of
four cities of the largest size ; one of which, as I have said,
is that " Island," which, surrounded by two harbours, pro
jects out towards the mouth and entrance of each. In it
there is a palace which did belong to king Hiero, which our
praetors are in the habit of using ; in it are many sacred
buildings, but two, which have a great pre-eminence over all
the others, — one a temple of Diana, and the other one, which
before the arrival of that man was the most ornamented of
all, sacred to Minerva. At the end of this island is a foun
tain of sweet water, the name of which is Arethusa, of
incredible size, very full of fish, which would be entirely
overwhelmed by the waves of the sea, if it were not protected
from the sea by a rampart and dam of stone. There is also
another city at Syracuse, the name of which is Achradina, in
which there is a very large forum, most beautiful porticoes,
a highly decorated town-hall, a most spacious senate-house,
and a superb temple of Jupiter Olympius ; and the other
districts of the city are joined together by one broad un
broken street, and divided by many cross streets, and by
private houses. There is a third city, which, because in that
district there is an ancient temple of Fortune, is called
Tyche, in which there is a spacious gymnasium, and many
sacred buildings, and that district is the most frequented
and the most populous. There is also a fourth city, which,
because it is the last built, is called Neapolis,1 in the highest
1 Neapolis meaning "new city," or as we might say, Newtown, from the
Greek words Ne'o iro\ts, as Tyche is the Greek name of Fortune — Tu%r).
Compare with this passage the description of Syracuse given by ThucY-
dides in his sixth and seventh books.
454 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
part of which there is a very large theatre, and, besides that,
there are two temples of great beauty, one of Ceres, the
other of Libera, and a statue of Apollo, which is called
Temenites, very beautiful and of colossal size ; which, if he
could have moved them, he would not have hesitated to
carry off.
LIV. Now I will return to Marcellus, that I may not
appear to have entered into this statement without any
reason. He, when with his powerful army he had taken
this splendid city, did not think it for the credit of the
Eoman people to destroy and extinguish this splendour,
especially as no danger could possibly arise from it, and
therefore he spared all the buildings, public as well as pri
vate, sacred as well as ordinary, as if he had come with his
army for the purpose of defending them, not of taking them
by storm. With respect to the decorations of the city, he
had a regard to his own victory, and a regard to humanity :
he thought it was due to his victory to transport many
things to Rome which might be an ornament to this city,
and due to humanity not utterly to strip the city, especially
as it was one which he was anxious to preserve. In this
division of the ornaments, the victory of Marcellus did not
covet more for the Roman people than his humanity reserved
to the Syracusans. The things which were transported to
Rome we see before the temples of Honour and of Virtue, and
also in other places. He put nothing in his own house,
nothing in his gardens, nothing in his suburban villa ; he
thought that his house could only be an ornament to the
city if he abstained from carrying the ornaments which
belonged to the city to his own house. But he left many
things of extraordinary beauty at Syracuse ; he violated not
the respect due to any god ; he laid hands on none. Com
pare Verres with him ; not to compare the man with the
man, — no such injury must be done to such a man as that,
dead though he be ; but to compare a state of peace with
one of war, a state of law and order, and regular jurisdiction,
with one of violence and martial law, and the supremacy of
arms ; to compare the arrival and retinue of the one with
the victory and army of the other.
LV. There is a temple of Minerva in the island, of which
I have already spoken, which Marcellus did not touch,
V. AGAINST VERRES.
455
which he left full of its treasures and ornaments, but which
was so stripped and plundered by Verres, that it seems to
have been in the hands, not of any enemy, — for enemies, even
in war, respect the rites of religion, and the customs of
the country, — but of some barbarian pirates. There was
a cavalry battle of their king Agathocles, exquisitely painted
in a series of pictures, and with these pictures the inside
walls of the temple were covered. Nothing could be more
noble than those paintings; there was nothing at Syracuse
that was thought more worthy going to see. These pictures,
Marcus Marcellus, though by that victoiy of his he had
divested everything of its sacred inviolability of character,
still, out of respect for religion, never touched ; Verres,
though, in consequence of the long peace, and the loyalty of
the Syracusan people, he had received them as sacred and
under the protection of religion, took away all those pictures,
and left naked and unsightly those walls whose decorations
had remained inviolate for so many ages, and had escaped
so many wars : Marcellus, who had vowed that if he took
Syracuse he would erect two temples at Rome, was unwilling
to adorn the temple which he was going to build with these
treasures which were his by right of capture ; Verres, who
was bound by no vows to Honour or Virtue, as Marcellus
was, but only to Venus and to Cupid, attempted to plunder
the temple of Minerva. The one was unwilling to adorn
gods in the spoil taken from gods, the other transferred
the decorations of the virgin Minerva to the house of a pro
stitute. Besides this, he took away out of the same temple
twenty-seven more pictures beautifully painted ; among
which were likenesses of the kings and tyrants of. Sicily,
which delighted one, not only by the skill of the painter,
but also by reminding us of the men, and by enabling us to
recognise their persons. And see now, how much worse a
tyrant this man proved to the Syracusans than any of the
old ones, as they, cruel as they were, still adorned the
temples of the immortal gods, while this man took away the
monuments and ornaments from the gods.
LVI. But now what shall I say of the folding-doors of
that temple 1 I am afraid that those who have not seen
these things may think that I am speaking too highly of,
and exaggerating everything, though no one ought to suspect
456 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
that I should be so inconsiderate as to be willing that so
many men of the highest reputation, especially when they
are judges in this cause, who have been at Syracuse, and who
have seen all these things themselves, should be witnesses to
my rashness and falsehood. I am able to prove this dis
tinctly, 0 judges, that no more magnificent doors, none more
beautifully wrought of gold and ivory, ever existed in any
temple. It is incredible how many Greeks have left written
accounts of the beauty of these doors : they, perhaps, may
admire and extol them too much ; be it so, still it is more
honourable for our republic, 0 judges, that our general, in a
time of war, should have left those things which appeared to
them, so beautiful, than that our praetor should have carried
them off in a time of peace. On the folding-doors were
some subjects most minutely executed in ivory ; all these he
caused to be taken out ; he tore off and took away a very
fine head of the Gorgon with snakes for hair ; and he showed,
too, that he was influenced not only by admiration for the
workmanship, but by a desire of money and gain ; for he
did not hesitate to take away also all the golden knobs from
these folding-doors, which were numerous and heavy ; and it
was not the workmanship of these, but the weight which
pleased him. And so he left the folding-doors in such
state, that, though they had formerly contributed greatly to
the ornament of the temple, they now seemed to have been
made only for the purpose of shutting it up. Am I to speak
also of the spears made of grass ? for I saw that you were
excited at the name of them when the witnesses mentioned
them. They were such that it was sufficient to have seen
them once, as there was neither any manual labour in them,
nor any beauty, but simply an incredible size, which it would
be quite sufficient even to hear of, and too much to see them
more than once. Did you covet even those ?
LVII. For the Sappho which was taken away out of the
town-hall affords you so reasonable an excuse, that it may
seem almost allowable and pardonable. That work of Sila-
nion, so perfect, so elegant, so elaborate, (I will not say what
private man, but) what nation could be so worthy to possess,
as the most elegant and learned Verres ? Certainly, nothing
can be said against it. If any one of us, who are not as
happy, who cannot be as refined as that man, should wish ta
V. AGAINST VERRES. 457
behold anything of the sort, let him go to the temple of
Good Fortune, to the monument of Catulus, to the portico
of Metellus ; let him take pains to get admittance into the
Tusculan villa of any one of those men ; let him see the forum
when decorated, if Verres is ever so kind as to lend any of
his treasures to the sediles. Shall Verres have all these
things at home? shall Verres have his house full of, his
villas crammed with, the ornaments of temples and cities ?
Will you still, 0 judges, bear with the hobby, as he calls it,
and pleasures of this vile artisan ? a man who was born in
such a rank, educated in such a way, and who is so formed,
both in mind and body, that he appears a much fitter person
to take down statues than to appropriate them. And how
great a regret this Sappho which he carried off left behind
her, can scarcely be told ; for in the first place it was admi
rably made, and, besides, it had a very noble Greek epigram
engraved upon the pedestal; and would not that learned man,
that Grecian, who is such an acute judge of these matters,
who is the only man who understands them, if he had under
stood one letter of Greek, have taken that away too ? for
now, because it is engraved on an empty pedestal, it both
declares what was once on the pedestal, and proves that it
has been taken away. What shall I say more ? Did you not
take away the statue of Psean from out of the temple of
./Esculapius, beautifully made, sacred, and holy as it was ?
a statue which all men went to see for its beauty, and wor
shipped for its sacred character. What more ? was not the
statue of Aristseus openly taken away by your command out
of the temple of Bacchus ? What more ? did you not take
away out of the temple of Jupiter that most holy statue of
Jupiter Imperator, which the Greeks call Ovpios, most beau
tifully made 1 What next ? did you hesitate to take away
out of the temple of Libera, that most exquisite bust of
Parian marble, which we used to go to see ? And that Paean
used to be worshipped among that people together with
./Esculapius, with anniversary sacrifices. Aristseus, who
being, as the Greeks report, the son of Bacchus, is said to
have been the inventor of oil, was consecrated among them
together with his father Bacchus, in the same temple.
LVIII. But how great do you suppose was the honour
paid to Jupiter Imperator in his own temple ? You may
4-j,-; CICEROS ORATIONS.
collect it from this consideration, if you recollect how great
was the religious reverence attached to that statue of the
same appearance and form which Flaminius brought out of
Macedonia, and placed in the Capitol. In truth, there were
said to be in the whole world three statues of Jupiter Impe-
rator, of the same class, all beautifully made : one was that
one from Macedonia, which we have seen in the Capitol ;
a second was the one at the narrow straits, which are the
mouth of the Euxine Sea ; the third was that which was at
Syracuse, till Verres came as praetor. Flaminius removed
the first from its habitation, but only to place it in the
Capitol, that is to say, in the house of Jupiter upon earth ;
but as to the one that is at the entrance of the Fjuxine, that,
though so many wars have proceeded from the shores of that
sea, and though so many have been poured into Pontus,has still
remained inviolate and untouched to this day. This third
one, which was at Syracuse, which Marcus Marcellus, when
in arms and victorious, had seen, which he had spared to the
religion of the place, which both the citizens of, and settlers
in Syracuse were used to worship, and strangers not only
visited, but often venerated, Caius Verres took away from
the temple of Jupiter. To return again to Marcellus. Judge
of the case, 0 judges, in this way; think that more gods
were lost to the Syracusans owing to the arrival of Verres,
than even were owing to the victory of Marcellus. In truth,
he is said to have sought diligently for the great Archimedes,
a man of the highest genius and skill, and to have been
greatly concerned when he heard that he had been killed ;
but that other man sought for everything which he did seek
for, not for the purpose of preserving it, but of carrying it away.
LIX. At present, then, all those things which might appeal-
more insignificant, I will on that account pass over — how he
took away Delphic tables made of marble, beautiful goblets
of brass, an immense number of Corinthian vases, out of
every sacred temple at Syracuse; and therefore, 0 judges,
those men who are accustomed to take strangers about to all
those things which are worth going to see, and to show them
every separate thing, whom they call mystagogi, (or cicerones,)
now have their description of things reversed; for as they
formerly used to show what there was in every place, so now
they show what has been taken from every place.
V. AGAIXST VEIIRES. 459
What do you think, then ? Do you think that those
men are affected with but a moderate indignation? Not
so, 0 judges: in the first place, because all men are influenced
by religious feeling, and think that their paternal gods, whom
they have received from their ancestors, are to be carefully
worshipped and retained by themselves ; and secondly, be
cause this sort of ornament, these works and specimens of
art, these statues and paintings, delight men of Greek ex
traction to an excessive degree; therefore by their complaints
we can understand that these things appear most bitter to
those men, wThich perhaps may seem trifling and contemptible
to us. Believe me, 0 judges, although I am aware to a cer
tainty that you yourselves hear the same things ; that though
both our allies and foreign nations have during these past
years sustained many calamities and injuries, yet men of
Greek extraction have not been, and are not, more indignant
at any than at this ruthless plundering of their temples and
altars. Although that man may say that he bought these
i/ */
things, as he is accustomed to say, yet, believe me in this,
0 judges, — no city in all Asia or in all Greece has ever sold
one statue, one picture, or oue decoration of the city, of its
own free will to anybody. Unless, perchance, you suppose
that, after strict judicial decisions had ceased to take place at
Rome, the Greeks then began to sell these things, which they
not only did not sell when there were courts of justice open,
but which they even used to buy up ; or unless you think
that Lucius Crassus, Quintus Scaevola, Caius Claudius, most
powerful men, whose most splendid sedileships we have seen,
had no dealings in those sort of matters with the Greeks, but
that those men had such dealings who became sediles after
the destruction of the courts of justice.
LX. Know also that that false pretence of purchase was
more bitter to the cities than if any one were privily to filch
things, or boldly to steal them and carry them off. For they
think it the most excessive baseness, that it should be entered
on the public records that the city was induced by a price,
and by a small price too, to sell and alienate those things
which it had received from men of old. In truth, the Greeks
delight to a marvellous degree in those things, which we
despise. And therefore our ancestors willingly allowed those
things to remain in numbers among the allies, in order that
460 CICERO S ORATIONS.
they might be as splendid and as flourishing as possible under
our dominion ; and among those nations whom they rendered
taxable or tributary,1 still they left these things, in order that
they who take delight in those things which to us seem insig
nificant, might have them as pleasures and consolations in
slavery. What do you think that the Rhegians, who now
are Roman citizens, would take to allow that marble Venus
to be taken from them 1 What would the Tareutines take to
lose the Europa sitting on the Bull ? or the Satyr which they
have in the temple of Vesta ? or their other monuments ?
What would the Thespians take to lose the statue of Cupid, the
only object for which any one ever goes to see Thespise ? What
would the men of Cnidos take for their marble Venus ? or the
Coans for their picture of her ? or the Ephesians for Alex
ander 1 the men of Cyzicus for their Ajax or Medea ? What
would the Rhodians take for lalysus1? the Athenians for
their marble Bacchus, or their picture of Paralus, or their
brazen Heifer, the work of Myron 1 It would be a long busi
ness and an unnecessary one, to mention what is worth going to
see among all the different nations in all Asia and Greece ; but
that is the reason why I am enumerating these things, because
I wish you to consider that an incredible indignation must be
the feeling of those men from whose cities these things are
carried away.
LXI. And to say nothing of other nations, judge of the
Syracusans themselves. For when I went to Syracuse, I
originally believed what I had heard at Rome from that
man's friends, that the city of Syracuse, on account of the
inheritance of Heraclius, was no less friendly to him than the
city of the Mamertines, because of their participation in all
his booty and robberies. And at the same time I was afraid
that, owing to the influence of the high-born and beautiful
women at whose will he had directed all the measures of his
prsetorship for three years, and of the men to whom they
were married, I should be opposed not only by an excessive
lenity, but even by a feeling of liberality towards that man,
if I were to seek for any evidence out of the public records of
1 The Latin is "quos vectigales aut stipendiarius fuerant" — "Stipen-
diarii and vectigales are thus distinguished : Stipendiarii are those who
pay annually a fixed sum as tribute; vectigales, those who pay in propor
tion to their property or income." — Riddle's Diet. v. Stipendiarius
V. AGAINST YEKEES. 461
the Syracusans. Therefore when at Syracuse I was chiefly
with Roman citizens ; I copied out their papers ; I inquired
into their injuries. As I was a long time occupied by that
business, in order to rest a little and to give my mind a
respite from care, I returned to those fine documents of Car-
pinatius ; in which, in company with some of the most honour
able knights of the body of Roman settlers, I unravelled the
case of those Verrutii, whom I have mentioned before, but I
expected no aid at all, either publicly or privately, from the
Syracusans, nor had I any idea of asking for any. While I
was doing this, on a sudden Heraclius came to me, who was
in office at Syracuse, a man of high birth, who had been priest
of Jupiter, which is the highest honour among the Syracusans;
he requests of me and of my brother, if we have no objection,
to go to their senate ; that they were at that moment assem
bled in full numbers in the senate-house, and he said that he
made this request to us to attend by command of the senate.
At first we were in doubt what to do ; but afterwards it soon
occurred to us that we ought not to shun that assembly or
that place.
LXII. Therefore we came to the senate-house ; they all
rise at our entry to do us honour. We sat down at the
request of the magistrates. Diodorus the son of Timarchides,
who was the first man in that body both in influence and in
age, and also as it seemed to me in experience and knowledge
of business, began to speak ; and the first sentence of his
speech was to this effect — That the senate and people of
Syracuse were grieved and indignant, that, though in all the
other cities of Sicily I had informed the senate and people
of what I proposed for their advantage or for their safety, and
though I had received from them all commissions, deputies,
letters and evidence, yet in that city I had done nothing of
that sort. I answered, that deputies from the Syracusans had
not been present at Rome in that assembly of the Sicilians
when my assistance was entreated by the common resolution
of all the deputations, and when the cause of the whole of
Sicily was entrusted to me ; and that I could not ask that
any decree should be passed against Caius Verres in that
senate-house in which I saw a gilt statue of Caius Verres.
And after I said that, such a groaning ensued at the sight
and mention of the statue, that it appeared to have been
462 CICERO S ORATIONS.
placed in the senate-honse as a monument of his wickednesses
and n^fc of his services. Then every one for himself, as fast
as each could manage to speak, began to give me information
of those things which I have just now mentioned ; to tell me
that the city was plundered — the temples stripped of their
treasures— that of the inheritance of Heraclius, which he had
adjudged to the men of the palaestra, he had taken by far
the greatest share himself ; and indeed, that they could not
expect that he should care for the men of the palaestra, when
he had taken away even the god who was the inventor of oil ;
that that statue had neither been made at the public expense,
nor erected by public authority, but that those men who had
been the sharers in the plunder of the inheritance of Hera
clius, had had it made and placed where it was ; and that
those same men had been the deputies at Home, who had
been his assistants in dishonesty, his partners in his thefts,
and the witnesses of his debaucheries ; and that therefore I
ought the less to wonder if they were wanting to the unani
mity of the deputies and to the safety of Sicily.
LXIII. When I perceived that their indignation at that
man's injuries was not only not less, but almost greater than
that of the rest of the Sicilians, then I explained my own
intentions to them, and my whole plan and system with refe
rence to the whole of the business which I had undertaken ;
then I exhorted them not to be wanting to the common
cause and the common safety, and to rescind that panegyric
which they had voted a few days before, being compelled, as
they said, by violence and fear. Accordingly, 0 judges, the
Syracusans, that man's clients and friends, do this. First of
all, they produce to me the public documents which they had
carefully stored up in the most sacred part of the treasiiry ;
in which they show me that everything, which I have said
had been taken away, was entered, and even more things
than I was able to mention. And they were entered in this
way. " What had been taken out of the temple of Minerva
. . . This, . . . and that." " What was missing out of the
temple of Jupiter." " What was missing out of the temple
of Bacchus." As each individual had had the charge of pro
tecting and preserving those things, so it was entered ; that
each, when according to law he gave in his accounts, being
bound to give up what he had received, had begged that he
V. AGAINST VERBES. 463
might be pardoned for the absence of these things, and that
all had accordingly been released from liability on that
account, and that it was kept secret ; all which documents I
took care to have sealed up with the public seal and brought
away. But concerning the public panegyric on him this
explanation was given : that at first, when the letters arrived
from Verres about the panegyric, a little while before my
arrival, nothing had been decreed ; and after that, when some
of his friends urged them that it ought to be decreed, they
were rejected with the greatest outcry and the bitterest
reproaches ; but when I was on the point of arriving, then he
who at that time was the chief governor had commanded
them to decree it, and that it had been decreed in such
a manner that the panegyric did him more damage than it
could have done him good. So now, judges, do you receive
the truth of that matter from me just as it was shown to me
by them.
LXIV. It is a custom at Syraciise, that, if a motion on any
subject is brought before the senate, whoever wishes, gives
his opinion on it. No one is asked by name for his senti
ments ; nevertheless, those are accustomed to speak first of
their own accord, and naturally, according as they are superior
in honour or in age ; and that precedence is yielded to them
by the rest ; but, if at any time all are silent, then they are
compelled to speak by lot. This was the custom when the
motion was made respecting the panegyric of Verres. On
which subject at first great numbers speak, in order to delay
coming to any vote, and interpose this objection, that formerly,
when they had heard that there was a prosecution instituted
against Sextus Peducseus, who had deserved admirably well of
that city and of the whole province, and when, in return for
his numerous and important services, they wished to vote a
panegyric on him, they had been prohibited from doing so by
Caius Verres ; and that it would be an unjust thing, although
Peducseus had now no need of their praise, still not to vote
that which at one time they had been eager to vote, before
decreeing what they would only decree from compulsion. All
shout in assent, and say approvingly that that is what ought
to be done. So the question about Peducseus is put to the
senate. Each man gave his opinion in order, according as he
had precedence in age and honour. You may learn this from
464 CICEEO'S ORATIONS.
the resolution itself; for the opinions delivered by the chief
men are generally recorded. Head —
[The list of speeches made on the subject of Sextus Peducceus is
read.]
It says who were the chief supporters of the motion. The
vote is carried. Then the question about Verres is put. Tell
me, I pray, what happened.
[The list of speeches made on the subject of Cairn Verres . . . .]
Well what comes next ?
[-4s no one rose, and no one delivered his opinion . , . .]
What is this?
[They proceed by lot.]
Why was this ? Was no one a willing praiser of your praetor-
ship, or a willing defender of you from danger, especially
when by being so he might have gained favour with the
preetor ? No one. Those very men who used to feast with
you, your advisers and accomplices, did not venture to utter
a word. In that very senate-house in which a statue of your
self and a naked statue of your son were standing, was there
no one whom even your naked son in a province stripped
naked could move to compassion'? Moreover they inform
me also of this, that they had passed the vote of panegyric in
such a form that all men might see that it was not a pane
gyric, but rather a satire, to remind every one of his shameful
and disastrous prsetorship. For in truth it was drawn up in
these words. " Because he had scourged no one." From
which you are to understand, that he had caused most noble
and innocent men to be executed. " Because he had admi
nistered the affairs of the province with vigilance," when all
his vigils were well known to have been devoted to debauchery
and adultery ; moreover, there was this clause added, which
the defendant could never venture to produce, and the accuser
would never cease to dwell upon ; " Because Verres had kept
all pirates at a distance from the island of Sicily ;" men who
in his time had entered even into the " island" of Syracuse.
And after I had received this information from them, I
departed from the senate-house with my brother, iu order
that they might decree what they chose.
LXV. Immediately they pass a decree. First, " That my
V. AGAINST VERRES. 465
brother Lucius should be connected with the city by ties of
hospitality ;" because he had shown the same goodwill to the
Syracusans that I had always felt myself. That they not
only wrote at that time, but also had engraved on brazen
tablets and presented to us. Truly very fond of you are
your Syracusans whom you are always talking of, who think
it quite a sufficient reason for forming an intimate connexion
with your accuser, that he is going to be your accuser, and
that he has come among them for the purpose of prosecuting
inquiries against you. After that, a decree is passed, not
with any difference of opinion, but almost unanimously,
" That the panegyric which had been decreed to Caius Verres,
be rescinded." But, when not only the vote had been come
to, but when it had even been drawn up in due form and
entered in the records, an appeal is made to the praetor. But
who makes this appeal 1 Any magistrate 1 No. Any sena
tor 1 Not even that. Any Syracusan ? Far from it. Who,
then, appeals to the prastor 1 The man who had been Verres's
quaestor, Caesetius. Oh, the ridiculous business ! Oh, the
deserted man ! 0 man despaired of and abandoned by the
Sicilian magistracy ! In order to prevent the Sicilians passing
a resolution of the senate, or from obtaining their rights
according to their own customs and their own laws, an appeal
is made to the praetor, not by any friend of his, not by any
connexion, not, in short, by any Sicilian, but by his own
quaestor. Who saw this 1 Who heard it ? That just and
wise praetor orders the senate to be adjourned. A great mul
titude flocks to me. First of all, the senators cry out that
their rights are being taken away; that their liberty is
being taken away. The people praise the senate and thank
them. The Roman citizens do not leave me. And on that
day I had no harder task, than with all my exertions to pre
vent violent, hands being laid on the man who made that
appeal. When we had gone before the praetor's tribunal, he
deliberates, forsooth, diligently and carefully what decision he
shall give ; for, before I say one word, he rises from his seat,
and departs. And so we departed from the forum when it
was now nearly evening.
LXVI. The next day, the first thing in the morning, I beg
of him to allow the Syracusans to give me a copy of the
resolution which they had passed the day before. But he
H H
466 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
refuses, and says that it is a great shame for me to have made
a speech in a Greek senate ; and that, as for my having
spoken in the Greek language to Greeks, that was a thing
which could not be endured at all. I answered the man as
I could, as I chose, and as I ought. Among other things,
I recollect that I said that it was easy to be seen how great
was the difference between him and the great Numidicus, the
real and genuine Metellus. That that Metellus had refused
to assist with his panegyric Lucius Lucullus, his sister's
husband, with whom he was on the very best terms, but that
he was procuring panegyrics from cities for a man totally
unconnected with himself, by violence and compulsion. But
when I understood that it was many recent messengers, and
many letters, not of introduction but of credit, that had had
so much influence over him, at the suggestion of the Syra-
cusans themselves I make a seizure of those documents in
which the resolutions of the senate were recorded. And now
behold a fresh confusion and strife. That, however, you may
not suppose that he was without any friends or connexions at
Syracuse, that he was entirely desolate and forsaken, a man
of the name of Theomnastus, a man ridiculously crazy, whom
the Syracusans call Theoractus.1 attempted to detain those
documents ; a man in such a condition, that the boys follow
him, and that every one laughs at him every time he opens
his mouth. But his craziness, which is ridiculous to others,
was then in truth very troublesome to me. For while he was
foaming at the mouth, his eyes glaring, and he crying out as
loud as he could that I was attacking him with violence, AVC
came together before the tribunal. Then I began to beg to
be allowed to seal up and cany away the records. He spoke
against me ; he denied that there had been any regular reso
lution of the senate passed, since an appeal had been made to
the praetor. He said that a copy of it ought not to be given
to me. I read the act, that I was to be allowed all documents
and records. He, like a crazy man as he was, urged that our
laws had nothing to do with him. That intelligent praetor
decided that he did not choose, as the resolution of the senate
had no business ever to be ratified, to allow me to take
*_ Theoractus seems a sort of nickname, to indicate his insanity, being
derived from ©ebs, God, and ^yw/j.i, to break ; while Theomnastus is
derived from 0ebs and /i^wrjuai to remember.
V. AGAINST VERRES. 467
a copy of it to Rome. Not to make a long story of it, if
I had not threatened the man vigorously, if I had not read
to him the provisions of the act passed in this case, and the
penalties enacted by it, I should not have been allowed to
have the documents. But that crazy fellow, who had de
claimed against me most violently on behalf of Verres, when
he found he did not succeed, in order I suppose to recover
my favour, gives me a book in which all Verres's Syracusan
thefts were set down, which I had already been informed of
by, and had a list of from them.
LXVII. Now, then, let the Mamertines praise you, who
are the only men of all that large province'who wish you to
get off; but let them praise you on condition that Heius,
who is the chief man of that deputation, is present ; let them
praise you on condition that they are here, ready to reply to
me on those points concerning which they are questioned.
And that they may not be taken by surprise on a sudden,
this is what I shall ask them : — Are they bound to furnish
a ship to the Roman people ? They will admit it. Have
they supplied it while Verres was praetor ? They will say, No.
Have they built an enormous transport at the public expense
which they have given to Verres ? They will not be able to
deny it. Has Verres taken corn from them to send to the
Roman people, as his predecessor did 1 They will say, No.
What soldiers or sailors have they furnished during those
three years ? They will say they furnished none at all. They
will not be able to deny that Messana has been the receiver
of all his plunder and all his robberies. They will confess
that an immense quantity of things were exported from that
city ; and besides that, that this large vessel given to him
by the Mamertines, departed loaded when the praetor left
Sicily. You are welcome, then, to that panegyric of the
Mamertines. As for the city of Syracuse, we see that that
feels towards you as it has been treated by you ; and among
them that infamous Verrean festival, instituted by you, has
been abolished. In truth, it was a most unseemly thing for
honours such as belong to the gods to be paid to the man
who had carried off the images of the gods. In truth, that
conduct of the Syracusans would be deservedly reproached,
if, when they had struck a most celebrated and solemn day of
festival games out of their annals, because on that day Syra-
HH2
4b8 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
cuse was said to have been taken by Marcellus, they should,
notwithstanding, celebrate a day of festival in the name of
Verres ; though he had plundered the Syracusans of all
which that day of disaster had left them. But observe the
shamelessness and arrogance of the man, 0 judges, who not
only instituted this disgraceful and ridiculous Verrean festival
out of the money of Heraclius, but who also ordered the Mar-
cellean festival to be abolished, in order that they might
every year offer sacrifices to the man by whose means they
had lost the sacred festivals which they had ever observed,
and had lost their national deities, and that they might take
away the festival days in honour of that family by whose
means they had recovered all their other festivals.
THR FIFTH BOOK OF THE SECOND PLEADING IN THE
PROSECUTION AGAINST VERRES.
THE SPEECH ON THE PUNISHMENTS.
THE ARGUMENT.
This speech is divided into three divisions. First of all Cicero speaks
of the conduct of Verres with respect to the war of the runaway
slaves, which arose out of the relics of the war of Spartacus, which
was brought to a termination just before the end of Verres's praetor-
ship. In the second place he speaks of his conduct with respect to
the pirates and banditti, who at that time infested the sea and the
coasts of Sicily. And in the third place he impeaches him on account
of the punishments he had inflicted on Roman citizens. But this
last topic takes up, comparatively speaking, but a small part of the
oration, though it has given the title to the whole oration. In the
first two divisions of the speech Cicero is mainly occupied in replying
to Hortensius, who had highly extolled Verres's military conduct and
valour.
I. I SEE, 0 judges, that it is not doubtful to any one of you
that Caius Verres most openly plundered everything in Sicily,
whether sacred or profane, whether private or public property ;
and that, not only without the slightest scruple, but without
even the very least disguise, he practised every possible
description of robbery and plunder. But a very heightened
and pompous defence of him is put forward in reply to me,
which I must considej very carefully beforehand, 0 judges,
how I am to resist. For his cause is stated in this way ; that
VI. AGAINST VEREES. 469
by his valour, and by his singular vigilance exerted at a critical
and perilous time, the province of Sicily was preserved in
safety from fugitive slaves, and from the dangers of war.
What am I to do, 0 judges ? In what way am I to shape my
accusation ? which way am I to turn ? For to all my attacks
the appellation of a gallant general is opposed, as a wall of
defence. I am acquainted with the topic ; — I see how Hor-
tensius is going to boast himself. He will dilate upon the
dangers of the war, the critical time of the republic, the
scarcity of able generals ; and then he will entreat of you, he
will even claim as a right belonging to himself, that you do
not suffer so great a general to be taken from the Roman
people through the evidence of the Sicilians ; that you do not
allow his glory as a general to be overclouded by accusations
of avarice. I cannot dissemble my alarm, 0 judges ; I am
afraid that Caius Verres, on account of this amazing warlike
valour of his, may escape with impunity from the consequences
of all his actions. For it occurs to me, what great influence, what
exceeding authority, the oration of Marcus Antonius was sup
posed to have had at the trial of Marcus Aquillius ; who, as
he was not only skilful as an orator, but bold also, when he
had nearly finished his speech, took hold of Marcus Aquillius
and placed him in the sight of every one, and tore his robe away
from his chest, in order that the Roman people and the
judges might see his scars, all received in front ; and at the
same time he enlarged a good deal on that wound which he
had received on his head from the general of the enemy ; and
worked up the men who were to judge in the cause to such a
pitch, that they were greatly afraid lest the man whom fortune
had saved from the weapons of the enemy, and who had not
spared himself, should appear to have been saved not to receive
praise from the Roman people, but to endure the cruelty of
the judges. Now again this same plan and method of defence
is to be tried by the opposite party ; the same object is aimed
at. He may be a thief, he may be a robber of temples, he
may be the very chief man in every sort of vice and crimi
nality ; but he is a gallant general and a fortunate one, and
he must be preserved for the critical emergencies of the
republic,
II. I will not plead against you according to strict law ; I
will not urge that point, which perhaps I ought to carry if
470 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
I did, that as this trial is appointed to take place according to
a particular formula, the point that requires to be proved by
you, is not what gallant exploits you may have performed in
war, but how you have kept your hands from other people's
money ; — I will not, I say, urge this ; but I will ask, as I per
ceive you are desirous that I should, what has been your
conduct and what have been your great exploits in war.
What will you say ? That in the war of the runaway slaves
Sicily was delivered by your valour 1 It is a great praise ; a
very honourable boast. But in what war? For we have
understood that after that war which Marcus Aquillius
finished, there has been no war of fugitive slaves in Sicily.
Oh ! but there was in Italy. I admit that ; a great and
formidable war. Do you then attempt to claim for yourself
any part of the credit arising from that war 1 Do you think
that you are to share any of the glory of that victory with
Marcus Crassus or Cnaeus Pompeius '? I do not suppose that
even this will be too great a stretch for your impudence, to
venture to say something of that sort. You, forsooth, hindered
any part of the forces of these slaves from passing over from
Italy into Sicily 1 Where ? When ? From what part of Italy.
as they never attempted to approach Sicily in any ships or
vessels of any sort 1 For we never heard anything whatever
of such an attempt ; but we have heard that care was taken,
by the courage and prudence of Marcus Crassus, that most
valiant man, that the runaways should not make boats so as
to be able to cross the strait to Messana ; an attempt from
which it would not have been so important to have cut them
off, if there were supposed to have been any forces in Sicily
able to oppose their invasion. But though there was war in
Italy so close to Sicily, still it never came into Sicily. Where
is the wonder ? for when it existed in Sicily, at exactly the
same distance from Italy, no part of it reached Italy.
III. What has the proximity of the countries to do with
either side of the argument in discussing this topic 1 Will
you say that access was very easy to the enemy, or that the
contagion and temptation of imitating thatwarwas a dangerous
one ? Every access to the island was not only difficult to,
but was entirely cut off from men who had no ships ; so that
it was more easy for those men, to whom you say that
Sicily was so near, to go to the shores of the ocean than
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 471
to Capo Pelorus. But as for the contagious nature of
that servile war, why is it spoken of by you more than by
all the rest of the officers who were governors of the other
. provinces? Is it because before that time there had been wars
of runaway slaves in Sicily ? But that is the very cause why
that province is now and has been in the least danger. For
ever since Marcus Aquillius left it, all the regulations and
edicts of the praetors have been to this effect, that no slave
should ever be seen with a weapon. What I am going to
mention is an old story, and one, probably, owing to the seve
rity of the example, not unknown to any one of you. They
tell a story that Lucius Domitius was prsetor in Sicily, and
that an immense boar was brought to him ; that he, marvel
ling at the size of the beast, asked who had killed it. When
he was told that it was such-an-one's shepherd, he ordered him
to be summoned before him ; that the shepherd came eagerly
to the prsetor, expecting praise and reward ; that Domitius
asked him how he had slain so huge a beast ; that he answered,
" With a hunting spear ;" and that he was instantly crucified
by order of the prsetor. This may, perhaps, appear harsh ; I
say nothing either way ; all that I understand from the story
is, that Domitius preferred to appear cruel in punishing, to
seeming negligent in overlooking offences.
IV. Therefore, while these were the established regulations
of the province, Caius Norbanus, a man neither very active
nor very valiant, was at perfect ease, at the very moment that
all Italy was raging with the servile war. For at that time
Sicily easily took care of itself, so that no war could possibly
arise there. In truth, as no two things are so closely united
as the traders are with the Sicilians, by habit, by interest, by
reason, and by community of sentiment; and as the Sicilians
have all their affairs in such a state that it is most desirable
tor them to be at peace ; and as they are so attached to the
sway of the Roman people that they would be very sorry that
its power should be diminished or altered ; and as ever since
the servile war all such dangers as these have been provided
for, both by the regulations of the praetors, and by the disci
pline of the masters ; there is no conceivable domestic evil
which can arise out of the province itself. What then do you
say ? Were there no disturbances of slaves in Sicily while
Verres was prsetor ? Are no conspiracies said to have taken
472 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
place 1 None at all that have ever come to the knowledge of
the senate and people of Rome ; none which that man has
thought worth writing public despatches to Rome about ; and
yet I do suspect that the body of slaves had begun to be less
orderly in some parts of Sicily; and I infer that, not so
much from any overt act, as from the actions and decrees of
Verres. And see with how little of a hostile feeling I am
going to conduct this case. I myself will mention and bring
forward the things which he wishes to have mentioned, and
which as yet you have never heard of. In the district of
Triocala, a place which the fugitive slaves had occupied before,
the family of a certain Sicilian called Leonidas was implicated
in suspicion of a conspiracy. Information of the matter was
laid before Verres. Immediately, as was natural, by his com
mand, the men who had been named were arrested and taken
to Lilybseum. Their master was summoned to appear, and
after the case had been heard they were condemned.
V. What happened afterwards 1 What do you suppose ?
Perhaps you expect to hear of some robbery or plunder ; —
do not look on all occasions for the same things — when a man
is in fear of war, what room is there for petty thefts ? How
ever, even if there was any opportunity for such a thing in
this matter, it was overlooked. Perhaps he could have got
some money out of Leonidas when he summoned him to
appear. There was besides room for bargaining, (and that
was an opportunity that he was not new to,) to get the cause
adjourned ; and a second chance, to get the slaves acquitted.
But when the slaves had been condemned, what opportunity
of plundering could there be 1 They must be brought up for
punishment. For there were the witnesses who were sitting
on the bench ; the public records were witnesses ; that most
splendid city of Lilybseum was a witness ; that most honour
able and numerous assembly of Roman citizens was a witness.
Nothing can be done ; they must be brought up. Accor
dingly, they are brought up, and fastened to the stake. Even
now, 0 judges, you seem to me to be waiting to see what
happened next ; because that man never did anything without
some gain and some booty. What could be done in such a
case? What is profitable? Expect then to hear of some
crime as infamous as you please ; but I will outdo all your
expectation. The men who had been convicted of wickedness
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 473
nnd conspiracy, who had been delivered up for punishment,
who had been bound to the stake, on a sudden, in the sight
of many thousands of men, are unbound and restored to Leo-
nidas their master. What can you say on this topic, 0 most
insane of men 1 except, indeed, that which I do not ask you j
what, in short, in so nefarious a business, although there can
be no doubt about it, still, even if there were a doubt, ought
not to be asked ; namely, what or how much money you took
to release them, and how you managed it. I give up the
whole of this to you ; and I release you from this anxiety ;
for I am not afraid of any one believing that you, without
any payment, undertook an action which no man in the world
except you could have been induced to undertake by any sum
of money whatever. But about that system of thieving and
plundering of yours I say nothing; — what I am now discussing
is your renown as a general.
VI. What do you say, 0 you admirable guardian and
defender of the province ? Did you dare to snatch from the
very jaws of death and to release slaves whom you had decided
were eager to take arms and to make war in Sicily, and whom,
in accordance with the opinion of your colleagues on the
bench, you had sentenced, after they had been already deli
vered up to punishment after the manner of our ancestors,
and had been bound to the stake, in order to reserve for
Roman citizens the cross which you had erected for con
demned slaves? Ruined cities, when their affairs are all
desperate, are often accustomed to these disastrous scenes ; to
have those who have been condemned restored to their
original position ; those who have been bound, released ; those
who have been banished, restored ; decisions which have been
given, rescinded. And when such events take place, there is
no one who is not aware that that state is hastening to its
fall. When such things take place, there is no one who thinks
that there is any hope of safety left. And whenever these
things do take place, their effect has been to cause popular or
high-born men to be relieved from punishment or exile ; still,
not by the very men who have passed the sentences ; still, not
instantly ; stUl, not if they have been convicted of those
crimes which affected the lives and property of all the citizens.
Still this is an utterly unprecedented step, and of such a cha
racter as to appear credible rather from consideration of who
474 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
the criminal is, than from consideration of the case itself.
That a man should have released slaves ; that that very man
who had sentenced them should release them ; that he should
release them, in a moment, out of the very jaws of death ;
that he should release slaves convicted of a crime which
affected the life and existence of every free man — 0 splendid
general, not to be compai-ed now to Marcus Aquillius, a most
valiant man, but to the Paulli, the Scipios, and the Marii !
That a man should have had such foresight at a time of such
alarm and danger to the province ! As he saw that the minds
of all the slaves in Sicily were in an unsettled state on account
of the war of the runaway slaves in Italy, what was the great
terror he struck into them to prevent any one's daring to
stir 1 He ordered them to be arrested — who would not be
alarmed 1 He ordered their masters to plead their cause —
what could be so terrible to slaves ? He pronounced " That
they appeared to have done . . . ." He seems to have extin
guished the rising flame by the pain and death of a few. What
follows next ? Scourgings, and burnings, and all those extreme
agonies which are part of the punishment of condemned
criminals, and which strike terror into the rest, torture and
the cross? From all these punishments they are released.
Who can doubt that he must have overwhelmed the minds of
the slaves with the most abject fear, when they saw a praetor
so good-natured as to allow the lives of men condemned of
wickedness and conspiracy to be redeemed from punishment,
the very executioner acting as the go-between to negotiate the
terms?
VII. What more ? Did you not act in the same manner iu
the case of Aristodemus of Apollonia, and in that of Leon of
Megara 1 What more ? Did that unquiet state of the slaves, -and
that sudden suspicion of war, inspire you with any additional
diligence in guarding the province, or with a new plan for
acquiring most scandalous gain ? When at your instigation
the steward of Eumenides of Halicya, a highborn and honour
able man of great wealth, was accused of some crime, you got
sixty thousand sesterces from his master, and he lately
explained to us, as a witness on his oath, how you managed
it. From Gains Matrinius, a Roman knight, you took in his
absence, while he was at Rome, a hundred thousand sesterces,
because you said that his stewards and shepherds had fallen
VI. AGAINST VJURRES. 475
under suspicion. Lucius Flavius, the agent of Caius Matrinius,
who paid you that money, deposed to this fact ; Caiiis Ma
trinius himself made the same statement, and that most illus
trious man, Cneeus Lentulus the censor, who quite recently
has both sent letters to you himself, and has procured others
to be sent to you for the purpose of doing honour to Caius
Matrinius, will prove the same thing. What more 1 Is it
possible to pass over the case of Apollonius, the son of Diocles,
a Panormitan, whose surname is Geminus 1 Can anything be
mentioned which is more notorious in the whole of Sicily ?
anything which is more scandalous 1 anything which is more
fully proved? This man Verres, as soon as he came to
Panormus, ordered to be summoned before him, and to be
cited before his tribunal, in the presence of a great number
of the Roman settlers in that city. Men immediately began
to talk ; to wonder how it was that Apollonius, a wealthy
man, had so long remained free from his attacks. " He has
devised some plan : he has brought some charge against him ;
a rich man is not summoned in a hurry by Verres without
some object." All are in the greatest state of anxiety to see
what is to happen, when on a sudden Apollonius himself
runs up, out of breath, with his young son ; for his father, a
very old man, had been for some time confined to his bed.
Verres names one of his slaves, who he said was the manager
of his flocks ; says that he has formed a conspiracy, and
excited slaves in other households. He had actually no such
slave in his family at all. He orders him to be produced
instantly. Apollonius asserts that he has no slave whatever
of that name. Verres orders the man to be hurried from the
tribunal, and to be cast into prison. He began to cry out,
while he was being hurried off, that he, unhappy man that he
was, had done nothing ; had committed no offence ; that his
money was all out at loan, that ready money he had none.
While he kept making these declarations in a very numerous
assembly of people, so that every one could understand that
he was treated with this bitter injustice and violence because
he had not given Verres money, — while, I say, he kept making
these statements about his money at the top of his voice, he
was thrown into prison.
VIII. See now the consistency of the praetor, and of that
praetor who, now being on his trial, is not defended as a tole-
476 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
rable prsetor, but is extolled as an admirable general. While
a war of slaves was dreaded, he released condemned slaves
from the same punishment which he inflicted on their masters
who were not condemned. He threw into prison, under pre
tence of a servile war, without a trial, Apollonius, a most
wealthy man, who if the runaway slaves had kindled a war in
Sicily would have lost a most magnificent fortune : the slaves
whom he himself, with the agreement of his assessors, decided
had conspired together for the purpose of war, those, without
the consent of his assessors, of his own accord, he released
from all punishment. What more shall I say ? If anything
was done by Apollonius to justify his being punished, shall
we conduct this affair in such a manner as to impute it as a
crime to the defendant, as to seek to excite ill-feeling against
him, if he has judged a man rather too harshly ? I will not
act in so bitter a spirit. I will not adopt the usual method
of accusers, so as to disparage anything which may have been
done mercifully, as having been so done out of indifference ;
or, if anything has been punished with severity, so as to per
vert that into a charge of cruelty — I will not act on that
system. I will follow your decisions ; I will defend your
authority as long as you choose ; when you yourself begin to
rescind your own decrees, then cease to be angry with me,
for I will contend, as I have a right to do, that he who has
been condemned by his own decision ought to be condemned
by the decisions of judges on their oaths. I will not defend
the cause of Apollonius, my own friend and connexion, lest I
should seem to be rescinding your decision ; I will say nothing
of the economy, of the virtue, of the industry of the man ; I
will even pass over that which I have mentioned before, that
his fortune was invested in such a manner, in slaves, in cattle,
in country houses, in money out at loan, that there was no
man to whom it would be more injurious for there to be any
disturbance or war in Sicily ; I will not even say this, that if
Apollonius were ever so much in fault, still an honourable
man of a most honourable city ought not to have been so
severely punished without a trial. I will not seek to excite
any odium against you, not even out of the circumstances
that, while such a man was lying in prison, in darkness, in
dirt and filth, all permission to visit him was refused by
your tyrannical prohibition to his aged father, and to his
VI. AGAINST VEERES. 477
youthful son. I will even pass over this, that every time
that you came to Panormus during that eighteen months, (for
all that time was Apollonius kept in prison,) the senate of
Panormus came to you as suppliants, with the public magis
trates and priests, praying and entreating you to release some
time or other that miserable and innocent man from that
cruel treatment. I will omit all these statements ; though,
were I to choose to follow them up, I could easily show by your
cruelty towards others, that every channel of mercy from the
judges to yourself has been long since blocked up.
IX. All those topics I will abandon, I will spare you them.
For I know beforehand what Hortensius will say in your
defence. He will confess that with Verres neither the old age
of Apollonius's father, nor the youth of his son, nor the tears
of both, had more influence than the advantage and safety of
the republic. He will say that the affairs of the republic
cannot be administered without terror and severity ; he will
ask why the fasces are borne before the praetors, why the axes
are given to them, why prisons have been built, why so many
punishments have been established against the wicked by the
usage of our ancestors. And when he has said all this with
becoming gravity and sternness, I will ask him why Verres
all of a sudden ordered this same Apollonius to be released
from prison, without any fresh circumstances having been
brought to light, without any defence having been made, or
any trial having taken place ? And I will affirm that there
is so much suspicion attached to this charge, that, without
any arguments of mine, I will allow the judges to form their
own opinion as to what a system of plundering this was, how
infamous, how scandalous, and what an immense and bound
less field it opens for inordinate gain. For first of all consider
for a moment how many and how grievous were the evils
which that man inflicted on Apollonius ; and then calculate
them and estimate them by money. You will find that they
were all so continued in the case of this one wealthy man, as
by their example to cause a fear of similar suffering and
danger to all others. In the first place, there was a sudden
accusation of a capital and detestable crime ; judge what you
think this worth, and how many have bought themselves off
from such charges. In the next place, there is an accusation
without an accuser, a sentence without any bench of judges,
478 CICERO S ORATIONS.
a condemnation without any defence having been niiiilu.
Estimate the money to be got by all these transactions, and
then suppose that Apollonius alone was an actual victim to
these atrocities, but that all the rest, as many as they were,
delivered themselves from these sufferings by money. Lastly,
there were darkness, chains, imprisonment, punishment within
the prison, seclusion from the sight of his parents and of his
children, a denial of the free air and common light of heaven ;
but these things, which a man might freely give his life to
escape, I am unable to estimate by the standard of money.
From all these things did Apollonius after a long time ransom
himself, when he was worn out with suffering and misery ;
but still he taught the rest to meet that man's wickedness
and avarice beforehand. Unless you think that a wealthy
man 'was selected for so incredible an accusation without any
object of gain ; or that, again, he was on a sudden released from
prison without any corresponding reason ; or that this method
of plundering was used and tried in the case of that man
alone, and that terror was not, by means of his example, held
out to and struck into every rich man in Sicily.
X. I wish, 0 judges, to be prompted by him, since I am
speaking of his military renown, if by accident I pass over
anything. For I seem to myself to have spoken of all his
exploits which are connected with his suspicion of a servile
war ; at all events I have not omitted anything intentionally.
You are in possession of the man's wisdom, and diligence, and
vigilance ; and of his guardianship and defence of the province.
The main thing is, as there are many classes of generals, for
you to know to what class he belongs. But that, in the
present dearth of brave men, you may not be ignorant of
such a commander as he is, know, — I beg you, 0 judges, to
be aware, that his is not the wisdom of Quintus Maximus, nor
the promptness of action belonging to that great man the
elder Africanus, nor the singular prudence of the Africaiius
of later times, nor the method and discipline of Paulus ^Emi-
lius, nor the vigour and courage of Caius Marcus ; but that
he js to bo esteemed and taken care of as belonging to quite
a different class of generals. In the first place, see how easy
and pleasant to himself Verres by his own ingenuity and
wisdom made the labour of marches, which is a labour of the
greatest importance in all military affairs, and most especially
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 479
necessary in Sicily. First, in the winter season he devises for
himself this admirable remedy against the severity of the cold
and the violence of storms and floods ; he selected the city of
Syracuse, the situation of which and the nature of its soil and
atmosphere are said to be such that there never yet was a day
of such violent and turbulent storms, that men could not see
the sun at some time or other in the day. Here that gallant
general was quartered in the winter months, so securely that
it was not easy to see him, I will not say out of the house, but
even out of bed. So the shortness of the day was consumed
in banquets, the length of the night in adulteries and debauch
eries. But when it began to be spring, the beginning of
which he was not used to date from the west wind, or from
any star, but he thought that spring was beginning when he
had seen the rose, then he devoted himself to labour and to
marches ; and in these he proved himself so patient and' active
that no one ever once saw him sitting on a horse.
XI. For, as was the custom of the kings of Bithynia, he
was borne on a litter carried by eight men, in which was a
cushion, very beautiful, of Melitan manufacture, stuffed with
roses. And he himself had one chaplet on his head, another
on his neck, and kept putting a network bag to his nose,
made of the finest thread, with minute interstices, full of roses.
Having performed his march in this manner, when he came
to any town he was carried in the same litter up to his
chamber. Thither came the magistrates of the Sicilians,
thither came the Roman knights, as you have heard many of
them state on their oaths ; there disputes were secretly com
municated to him ; and from thence, a little while afterwards,
decrees were openly brought down. Then, when for a while
he had dispensed the laws for bribery, and not out of consider
ations of justice, he thought that now the rest of his time
was due to Venus and to Bacchus. And when speaking of
this, I must not omit the admirable and singular diligence of
this great general. For know that there is no town in all
Sicily of those in which the praetors are accustomed to stay
and hold their court, in which there was not some woman
selected for him out of some respectable family, to gratify his
lust. Some of them were even openly present at his banquets.
If there were some a little modest, they used to come at the
proper time, and avoided the light of day, and the crowd.
480 CICERO S ORATIONS.
And these banquets were celebrated, not with the orderly
silence of the banquets of prsetors and generals of the Roman
people, nor with that modesty which is usually found at the
entertainments of magistrates, but with the most excessive
noise and licence of conversation — sometimes even affairs
proceeded to blows and fighting. For that strict and diligent
pra?tor, who had never obeyed the laws of the Roman people,
observed most carefully those rules which are laid down for
drinking parties. And accordingly the ends of these banquets
were such that men were often earned out from the feast as
from a battle ; others were left on the ground as dead ;
numbers lay prostrate without sense or feeling, so that any
one who beheld the scene would have supposed that he was
looking not on a banquet of a prsetor, but on the battle of
Cannse.
XII. But when the middle of summer began to be felt,
the time that all the prsetors in Sicily have been accustomed
to devote to their journeys, because they think that the best
time for travelling over the province when the corn is on the
threshing-floor, because at that time all the members of
a household are collected together, and the number of a per
son's slaves is seen, and the work that is done is most easily
observed; the abundance of the harvest invites travel and
the season of the year is no obstacle to it ; then, I say, when
all other prsetors are used to travel about, that general of
a new sort pitched himself a permanent camp in the most
beautiful spot in Syracuse. For at the very entrance -and
mouth of the harbour, where first the bay begins to curve
from the shore of the open sea towards the city, he pitched
tents of fine linen curtains ; thither he migrated from the
praetorian palace which had belonged to king Hiero, and
lived here so that during the whole summer no one ever saw
him out of his tent. And to that tent no one had access
unless he was either a boon companion, or a minister of his
lust. Hither came all the women with whom he had any
intrigue, and of these it is incredible how great a number
there was at Syracuse. Hither came men worthy of that
man's friendship, worthy associates in that course of life and
those banquets.' Among such men and such women as these,
his son, now grown up, spent his time ; in order that if nature
removed him at all from the likeness to his father, still use
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 481
and constant training might make him resemble him. That
Tertia whom I have spoken of before, having been tempted
by trick and artifice to leave her Rhodian flute-player and to
come hither, is reported to have caused great disturbance in
that camp ; as the wife of Cleomenes the Syracusan, a woman
of noble birth, and the wife of ^Eschrio, a woman of very
respectable patronage, were very indignant that the daughter
of Isidorus the buffoon should be admitted into their com
pany. But that Hannibal, who thought that in his camp
there ought to be no rivalry of birth, but only of merit, was
so much in love with this Tertia, that he carried her with him
out of the province.
XIII. And all that time, while that man, clad in a purple
cloak and a tunic reaching to his ancles, was revelling in
banquets with women, men were not offended, nor in the
least vexed that the magistrate was absent from the forum,
that the laws were not administered, that the courts of
justice were not held ; that all that shore resounded with
women's vices, and music and songs. They were not, I say,
at all vexed at there being a total silence in the forum, no
pleading, and no law. For it was not law or the court of
justice that seemed to be absent from the forum, but violence
and cruelty, and the bitter and shameful robbery of good
men. Do you then, 0 Hortensius, defend this man on the
ground of his having been a general ? Do you endeavour to
conceal his thefts, his rapine, his cupidity, his cruelty, his
pride, his wickedness, his audacity, by dwelling on the great
ness of his exploits and his renown as a commander ? No
doubt I have cause to fear here, that at the end of. your
defence you may have recourse to the old conduct of An-
tonius, and to his mode of ending a speech ; that Verres
may be brought forward, his breast bared, that the Roman
people may see his scars, inflicted by the bites of women,
traces of lust and profligacy. May the gods grant that you
may venture to make mention of military affairs and of war.
For all his ancient military service shall be made known, in
order that you may be aware, not only what he has been as
a commander, but also how he behaved as a soldier in his
campaigns. That first campaign of his shall be brought up
again, in which he was, as he says himself, subservient to
others, not their master. The camp of that gambler of
1 1
482 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
Placentia shall be brought up again, where, though he was
assiduous in his attendance, he still lost his pay. Many
of his losses in his campaigns shall be recounted, which
were made up for and retrieved by the most infamous expe
dients. But afterwards, when he had become hardened by
a long course of such infamy, — when he had sated others,
not himself, — why need I relate what sort of man he turned
out ? what carefully guarded defences of modesty and chastity
he broke down by violence and audacity 1 or why should
I connect the disgrace of any one else with his profligacy 1 I
will not do so, 0 jiidges. I will pass over all old stories ;
I will only mention two recent achievements of his, without
fixing infamy on any one else ; and by those you will be able
to conjecture the rest. One of them is, that it was so noto
rious to every one, that during the consulship of Lucius
Lucullus and Marcus Gotta, no one ever came up from any
municipal town to Rome on any law business, who was so ill-
informed of what was going on as not to know that all the
laws of the Roman people were regulated by the will and
pleasure of Chelidon the prostitute. The other is that, after
he had left the city in the robe of war, — after he had
pronounced the solemn vows for the success of his adminis
tration, and for the common welfare of the republic, he was
accustomed, for the sake of committing adultery, to be
brought back into the city, at night, in a litter, to a woman
who, though the wife of one man, was common to all men,
contrary to law, contrary to what was required by the
auspices, contrary to everything which is held sacred among
gods and men.
XIV. 0 ye immortal gods ! what a difference is there
between the minds and ideas of men ! So may your good
opinion and that of the Roman people approve of my inten
tions, and sanction my hopes for the rest of my life, as I have
received those offices with which the Roman people has as yet
entrusted me with the feeling that I was bound to a conscien
tious discharge of every possible duty. I was appointed quses
tor with the feeling that that honour was not given to me so
much as lent and entrusted to me. I obtained the qusestorship
in the province of Sicily, and considered that every man's eyes
were turned upon me alone. So that I thought that I and my
qusestorship were being exhibited on some theatre open to the-
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 483
whole world ; so that I denied myself all those things which
seem to be indulgences, not merely to those irregular passions,
but even those which are coveted by nature itself and by
necessity. Now I am eeclile elect, I consider what it is that
I have received from the Roman people ; I consider that
I am bound to celebrate holy games with the most solemn
ceremonies to Ceres, to Bacchus, and to Libera ; that I am
bound to render Flora propitious to the Roman nation and
people by the splendour of her games ; that it is my office
to celebrate those most ancient games, which were the first
that were ever called Roman games, with the greatest dignity
and with all possible religious observance, in honour of Juno,
Jupiter, and Minerva ; that the charge of protecting all the
sacred buildings and the whole city is entrusted to me ; that
as a recompense for all that labour and anxiety these honours
are granted to me, — an honourable precedence in delivering
my opinion in the senate ; a toga preetexta ; a curule chair ;
a right of transmitting my image to the recollection of my
posterity. I wish, 0 judges, that all the gods may be propi
tious to me, as I do not receive by any means so much
pleasure from all these things, (though the honours conferred
on me by the people are most acceptable to me,) as I feel
anxiety, and as I will take pains, that this sedileship may not
seem to have been given to some one of the candidates,
because it coidd not be helped, but to have been conferred
on me because it was proper that it should be, and to have
been conferred by the deliberate judgment of the people.
XV. You, when you were appointed praetor, by whatever
means it was brought about, — for I leave out and pass over
everything that was done at that time, — but when you were
appointed, as I have said, were you not roused by the very
voice of the crier, who made such frequent announcements
that you had been invested with that honour by the centimes
of the seniors and juniors, to think that some part of the
republic had been entrusted to you 1 that for that one year
you must do without the house of a prostitute ? When it
fell to you by lot to preside in the court of justice, did you
never consider what an important affair, what a burden you
had imposed on you ? Did it never once ocpur to you, if by
any chance you were able to awaken yourself, that that pro
vince, which it was difficult for a man to administer properly
n2
484 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
even if endowed with the greatest wisdom and the greatest
integrity, had fallen to the lot of the greatest stupidity and
worthlessness 1 Therefore, you were not only unwilling to
drive Chelidon from your house during your prsetorship, but
you even transported your whole prsetorship to Chelidon's
house. The province followed j in which it never occurred
to you that the fasces and axes, and such absolute authority,
and such dignity, and every sort of decoration, was not given
to you in order, by the power and authority derived from
these things, to break down all the barriers of law and
modesty and duty, and to consider every man's property as
your own booty ; so that no man's estate could be safe, no
man's house closed ; no man's life protected, no woman's
chastity fortified, against your cupidity and audacity; in
which you behaved yourself in such a way that, being detected
in everything, you take refuge in an imaginary war of run
away slaves ; by which you now perceive, that not only no
defence is procured for you, but that an immense body of
accusations is raised up against you ; unless, indeed, you are
going to speak of the relics of the war in Italy, and the dis
aster of Temsa.1 But when your fortune recently conducted
you to that place, at a most seasonable time, if you had any
courage, or any energy, you were found to be the same man
that you had ever been.
XYI. When the men of Valentia had come to you, and
when a noble and an eloquent man, Marcus Marius, was
addressing you on their behalf, begging you to undertake the
business, and, as the power and the name of preetor belonged
to you, to act as their chief and leader in extinguishing that
small band that was at Temsa, you not only shunned that
task, but at that very time, while you were on the shore,
that dear Tertia of yours, whom you were carrying with you,
was there in the sight of all men. And to the deputies from
Valentia, such an illustrious and noble municipality, you
gave no answer at all in matters of such moment, while you
were still in your dark-coloured tunic and cloak. What can
you, 0 judges, suppose that this man did while on his
journey? what can you suppose he did in the province itself?
1 Temsa is a town of the Bruttii, whither some of the relics of
opartacus's army had fled. Yerres had passed through it. or close to it,
on his return from Sicily.
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 485
who, when he was on his way from his province, not to cele
brate a triumph, but to be put on his trial, did not avoid
a scandal which could not have been accompanied by any
pleasure. Oh ! the noble murmur of the crowd in the
temple of Bellona ! You recollect, 0 judges, when it was
getting towards evening, and when mention had been made
a short time before of this disaster at Temsa, when no one
was found who could be sent into those districts with a mili
tary command, that some one said that Verres was not far
from Temsa. You recollect how universally every one mur
mured ; how openly the chief men repudiated the suggestion.
And does the man who has been convicted of so many accu
sations by so many witnesses, now place any hope in the votes
of those judges, who have already openly condemned him, even
before his cause was heard ?
XVII. Be it so. He has gained no credit either from any
war of the runaway slaves, or from the suspicion of such a
war ; because there has neither been any such war, nor
danger of any such war in Sicily ; nor were any precautions
taken by him to prevent such a war. But, at all events,
against any war of pirates he had a fleet well equipped, and
he exhibited extraordinary energy in that matter. And,
therefore, while he was praetor, the province was admirably
defended. I will speak of the war with the pirates, and of
the Sicilian fleet, when I have first of all solemnly stated,
that with respect to this matter alone, he committed all his
most enormous crimes, — crimes of avarice, of treason, of
insanity, of lust and of cruelty. I beg of you to give your
most diligent attention, as you have hitherto given it, while
I briefly detail the events that took place.
,In the first place, I say, that the naval affairs were managed,
not with the view of defending the province, but of acquiring
money under pretence of providing a fleet. Though this had
been the custom of former prsetors, to impose a contribution
of ships and of a fixed number of sailors and soldiers on
each city, yet you imposed no contribution on the very im
portant and wealthy city of the Mamertiiies. What money
the Mamertines gave you secretly for that indulgence, will be
seen hereafter ; we will ascertain that from their own letters
and witnesses. But I assert, that a merchant vessel of the
largest size, like a trireme, very beautiful, and highly orna-
;486 CICEBOS ORATIONS.
mented, was openly built at the public expense, with the
knowledge of all Sicily, and given and presented to you by
the magistrates and senate of the Mamertines. This ship,
laden with Sicilian booty, itself being also a part of that
booty, put into Velia, at the same time that he himself left
the province, laden with many articles, and especially with
such as he did not like to send to Rome along with the rest of
the fruits of his robberies before he arrived himself, because
they were the most valuable, and those which he was most
fond of. I myself have lately seen that vessel at Velia,
0 judges, and many other men have seen it too; a very beau
tiful and highly ornamented ship, which, indeed, seemed to
all who beheld her, to be now looking for the banishment, and
to be waiting for the departure of her owner.
XVIII. What answer will you make to me now 1 Unless,
perhaps, you say what, although it cannot possibly be ad
mitted as an excuse, yet must be urged in a trial for extortion,
that that ship was built with your own money. Dare, at least,
to say this which is necessary. Do not be afraid, 0 Horten-
sius, of my asking how it became lawful for a senator to build
a ship 1 Those are old and dead laws, as you are accustomed
to call them, which forbid it. There was such a republic
here, once, 0 judges ; there was such strictness in the tribu
nals, that an accuser would have thought such a transaction
worthy to be classed among the most serious crimes. For
what did you want of a ship 1 when, if you were going any
where on account of the state, ships were provided for you at
the public expense, both to convey you, and to guard you?
But it is not possible for you to go anywhere on your own
private account, nor to send for articles across the sea from
those countries in which it is not lawful for you to have any
possessions, or any dealings. Then, why have you prepared
anything contrary to the laws'? This charge would have
had weight in the ancient severity and dignity of the republic.
Now, I not only do not accuse you on account of this offence,
but I do not even reprove you with an ordinary reprimand.
Lastly, did you never think that this would be discreditable
to you? did you never think it would be ground for an accu
sation, or cause for unpopularity, to have a transport openly
built for you, in a most frequented place in that province in
which you had the supreme command 1 What did you sup-
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 487
pose that they said who saw it ? What did you suppose that
they thought who heard of it ? Did they think that you
were going to take that vessel to Italy, empty ? that you
were going to let it out as a sailing boat, when you got to
Rome ? No one could even believe that you had in Italy any
farm, on the coast, and that you were preparing a merchant
vessel for the purpose of moving your crops. Did you wish
every man's conversation to be such as for men to say openly
that you were preparing that ship to carry all your plunder
from Sicily, and to go to and fro for the booty which you
had left behind 1 But, however, I give up and grant the
whole of this, if you say that the vessel was built with your
money. But, 0 most demented of men, are you not aware
that this ground was cut from under your feet by those very
friends of yours, the Mamertines themselves, in the previous
pleading 1 For Heius, the chief man of the city, — the chief
man of that deputation which was sent to utter a panegyric on
you, said that the ship had been built for you by the public
labour of the Mamertines, and that a Mamertine Senator had
been appointed by public authority to superintend the build
ing of it. The only thing that remains is the materials. And
this you yourself compelled the Bhegians to furnish at the
public expense, as they say themselves (not that you can
deny it), because the Mamertines have no proper materials.
XIX. If both the materials of which the vessel is built,
and if those who built it, were provided by your authority, not
at your expense, what, then, is the secret thing which you
say was paid for with your money 1 Oh ! but the Mamer
tines have no entries respecting it in their public accounts.
In the first place, I can uiiderstand that it may be possible
that they did not disburse any money out of the treasury.
In fact, even the Capitol, as it was built in the time of our
ancestors, was able to be built and completed by public au
thority, but without any public payment, workmen being
pressed into the service, and a fair quota of work being ex
acted from each person respectively. In the next place, I see
this also, (which I will prove when I produce my witnesses,
from the accounts of the Mamertines themselves,) that a great
deal of money was spent by that man which was entered as
paid for imaginary contracts for works that never existed.
For it is not at all strange that the Mamertines should in
488 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
their accounts have shown a regard for that man's safety,
from whom they had received the greatest benefits, and whom
they had known to be much more friendly to them than he
was to the Koman people. But if it is any argument that
the Mamertines did not giA*e you money, because they have
not got it down in their accounts, let it be an argument also
that the ship cost you nothing, because you have no entry to
produce of having bought it; or having made a contract with
any one to build it for you.
Oh ! but you did not command the Mamertines to furnish
a ship, because they are one of the confederate cities. Thank
God, we have a man trained by the hands of the Fetiales ; '
a man above all others pious and careful in all that belongs to
public religion. Let all the men who have been prsetors
before you be given up to the Mamertines, because they
have commanded them to furnish ships contrary to the pro
visions of the treaty. But still you, 0 you pious and scru
pulous man, how was it that you commanded the people of
Tauromenium, which is also a confederate city, to furnish
a ship ? Will you make any one believe that, while the case
of both the states was exactly the same, the law that you
administered, and the condition in which you left each, was so
different, without money being the cause of the difference 1
What, if I prove, 0 judges, that these two treaties with the
two states were of such a nature, that in the case of the
people of Tauromenium it was expressly provided for and
guarded against in the treaty, " that they were not bound
to furnish a vessel •" but that in the case of the Mamertiues
it was set down and written in the treaty itself, " that they
were bound to furnish a vessel ;" but that Verres, in opposi
tion to both treaties, compelled the Tauromenians to furnish
one, and excused the Mamertines 1 Can it, then, be doubtful
to any one that, while Verres was praetor, that merchant-
1 The Fetiales were a college of Roman priests, who acted as the
guardians of the public faith ; it was their province to determine the
circumstances under which satisfaction was to be demanded from, or
hostilities declared against any foreign state. They were the especial
arbiters of peace, of war, and of treaties. Their number was probably
twenty. They were selected from the most noble families, and their
office was held for life. The name is of uncertain derivation. — Vide
Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 416, in voce.
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 489
vessel was a greater assistance to the Mamertines than the
treaty was to the Tauromenians ? Let the treaties be read.
[The treaties of the Mamertines and the Tauromenians with
the Roman people are readJ\
XX. By that act therefore, of kindness, as you call it — of
corruption and dishonesty, as the case itself proves, — you
detracted from the majesty of the republic, you diminished
the reinforcements of the Roman people — you diminished
their resources, acquired by the valour and wisdom of their
ancestors ; you destroyed their imperial rights, and the terms
on which the allies became such, and all recollection of the
treaty. They who by the express words of the treaty were
bound to send at their own expense and risk a ship properly
armed and equipped with everything necessary, even as far 'as
the ocean if we ordered them to do so, those men bought
from you for money a release from the terms of the treaty,
and a release from the rights of sovereignty which we had
over them, so as to be excused from even sailing in that nai'-
row sea before their own houses and homes, from defending
their own walls and harbours. How much labour, and trouble,
and money, do you suppose the Mamertines at the time of
making this treaty would willingly have devoted to the object
of preventing this bireme from being mentioned in it, if
they could by any possibility have obtained such a favour
from our ancestors 1 For when this heavy burden was im
posed on the city, there was contained somehow or other in
that treaty of alliance some badge, as it were, of slavery. That
which then, when their services were recent, before the matter
was finally determined, when the Roman people were in no
difficulties, they could not obtain by treaty from our ancestors ;
that now, when they have done us no new service, after so
many years, — now that it has been enforced every year by
our right of sovereignty, and has been invariably observed —
now, I say, when we are in great want of vessels, they have
obtained from Caius Verres by bribery.
Oh ! but this is all that they have gained, exemption from
furnishing a ship ! Have the Mamertines for the last three
years furnished one sailor, one soldier, to serve either in fleet
or in garrison, all the time you have been praetor 1
XXI. Lastly, when according to the resolution of the senate,
490 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
and also according to the Terentian and Cassian law, corn was
to be bought in equal proportions from all the cities of Sicily,
from that, light burden also, which they shared too with all
the 'other cities, you relieved the Mamertines. — You will say
that the Mamertines do not owe corn. How do not owe
corn ? Do you mean to say they were not bound to sell us
corn 1 For this corn was not a contribution to be exacted, but
a supply to be purchased. By your permission, then, by your
interpretation of the treaty, the Mamertines were not bound
to assist the Roman people, even by supplying their markets,
and furnishing them with provisions. And what city, then,
was bound to supply these things? As for those who cultivate
the public domains, it is settled what they are bound to fur
nish by the Censorian law. Why did you exact from them
anything besides that in another class of contribution ? What ?
Do those who are liable to the payment of tenths owe anything
more 'than a single tenth, according to the law of Hiero?
WThy have you fixed in their case also how much corn they
were to be bound to sell to us, that being another description
of contribution? Those who are exempt undoubtedly owe
nothing. But you not only exacted this from them, but even
by way of making them give more than they possibly could,
you added to their burden those sixty thousand modii from
which you excused the Mamertines. And this is not what
I say, that this was not rightly exacted from the others;
what I say is, that it was a scandalous thing to excuse the
Mamertines, whose case was exactly the same, and from whom
all previous praetors had exacted the same contribution that
they did from the rest, and had paid them for it according to
the resolution of the senate, and the law. And in order to
drive in this indulgence with a big nail, as one may say, he
takes cognisance of the cause of the Mamertines while sitting
on the bench with his assessors, and pronounces judgment,
that he, according to the decision of the bench, does not de
mand any corn from the Mamertines. Listen to the decree
of the mercenary praetor from his own note-book ; and take
notice how great his gravity is in framing a decree, how great
his dignity is in pronouncing it. Read the next memorandum
of his decrees.
[The decree, extracted from Verress note-book, is read.]
He says, " that he does this willingly" and therefore he
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 491
makes the entry in his book. What then ? suppose you had
not used this word " vrittingly? should we, forsooth, have sup
posed that you made this profit unwillingly ? " And by the
advice of the bench;" you have heard a fair list of the assessors
read to you, 0 judges. Did it seem to you, when you heard
their names, that a list of assessors to a prsetor was being
read, or a roll of the troop and company of a most infamous
bandit ? Here are interpreters of treaties, settlers of the terms
of alliances, authorities as to religious obligations ! Corn was
never bought in Sicily by public order, without the Mamer-
tines being ordered to furnish their just proportion, till that
fellow appointed this select and admirable bench of his, in
order to get money from them, and to act up to his invariable
character. Therefore, that decree had just the weight that
the authority of that man ought to have, who sold a decree to
those men from whom it had been his duty to buy corn.
For Lucius Metellus, the moment he arrived as his suc
cessor, required corn of the Mamertines, according to the
regulations and appointment of Caius Sacerdos and Sextus
Peducseus.
XXII. Then the Mamertines perceived that they could not
longer retain the privilege which they had bought from its
unprincipled author. Come now, you, who were desirous to
be thought such a scrupulous interpreter of treaties, tell us
why you compelled the Tauromenians and the Netians to
furnish corn ; for both of those are confederate cities. And
the Netians were not wanting to themselves, for as soon as
you pronounced your decision that you willingly excused the
Mamertines, they came before you, and proved to you that
their case under the treaty was exactly the same. You could
not make a different decree in a case which was identical with
the other. You pronounce that the Netians are not bound to
furnish corn, and still you exact it from them. Give me the
papers of this same prsetor referring to his decrees, and to the
corn that was ordered to be supplied, and to the wheat that
was bought.
[The papers of the praetor referring to his decrees, to the corn
ordered to be supplied, and to the wheat purchased, are read.]
In a case of such enormous and shameful inconsistency,
what can we suspect, 0 judges, rather than that which is
492 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
inevitable ; either that money was not given to him by the
Netiaus when he demanded it, or else that the Mamertines
were given to understand that they had disposed of all their
bribes and presents very advantageously, when others, whose
case was identical with theirs, could not obtain the same
privileges ?
"Will he here again venture to make mention to me of the
panegyric of the Mamertines? for who is there of you, 0 judges,
who is not aware how many weapons that furnishes against
him ? In the first place, as in courts of justice it is more
respectable for a man who cannot produce ten witnesses to
speak to his character, to produce none at all, than not to
complete the number made as it were legitimate by usage ;
so there are a great many cities in Sicily over which you were
governor for three years ; almost all the rest accuse you ; a few
insignificant ones, kept back by fear, say nothing ; one speaks
in your favour. What does all this show except that you are
aware how advantageous genuine evidence to a person's cha
racter is ; but that, nevertheless, your administration of the
province was such that you are forced of necessity to do with
out that advantage 1
In the next place, as I said before on another occasion, what
sort of a panegyric is that, when the chief men of the deputa
tion commissioned to utter it, stated, both that a ship had
been built for you at the public expense, and also that they
themselves had been plundered and pillaged by you in respect
of their private property ? Lastly, what else is it that these
people do, when they are the only people in all Sicily who
praise you, beyond proving to us that you gave them every
thing of which you robbed our republic ] What colony is
there in Italy in possession of such privileges, what munici
pality is there enjoying such immunities, as to have had for
all these years such a profitable exemption from all burdens,
as the city of the Mamertiues has had for three years ? They
alone have not given what they were bound to give according
to the treaties ; they alone, as long as that man was preetor,
enjoyed immunity from all burdens; they alone under that
man's authority lived in such a condition that they gave
nothing to the Roman people, and refused nothing to Verres.
XXIII. But to return to the fleet, from which topic I have
been digressing ; you accepted a ship from the Mamertines
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 493
contrary to the laws ; you granted them relaxation contrary
to the treaties; so that you behaved like a rogue twice in the
case of one city, as you both granted indulgences which you
had no right to grant, and accepted what it was not lawful
for you to accept. You ought to have exacted a ship from
them fit to sail against robbers, not to carry off the produce
of your robberies ; one which might have defended the pro
vince from being despoiled, not one that was to bear away the
fresh spoils of the province. The Mamertines gave you both
a city to which you might carry all the plunder you amassed
from all quarters, and also a ship, in which you might take it
away. That town was a receptacle for your plunder, those men
were the witnesses to and guardians of your plunder ; they
supplied to you both a repository for your thefts, and a con
veyance for them. In consequence, even when you had lost
a fleet by your own avarice and worthlessness, you did not
venture to require a ship of the Mamertines, at a time when
our want of ships was so excessive, and the distress of the
province so great, that, even if it had been necessary to beg as
supplicants for a ship, they would have granted it. But all
your power either of commanding a vessel to be furnished,
or of begging for one, was crippled, not by the bireme supplied
to the Roman people, but by that splendid merchant vessel
given to the praetor. That was the price of your authority,
of the reinforcement they were bound to supply, of exemption
from the requirements of law, and usage, and of the treaty.
You have now the case of the trusty assistance of one city
lost to us and sold. Now listen to a new system of robbery
first invented by Verres.
XXIV. Each city was always accustomed to give to its
admiral the money necessary for the expense of the fleet, for
provisions, for pay, and for all such things. The admiral did
not dare to give the sailors any ground for accusing him, and
was, besides, bound to render an account of the money to his
fellow-citizens. In the whole business all the trouble and all
the risk was his. This, I say, was the regular course not only
in Sicily, but in every province, even in the case of the pay
and expense of the Latin allies, at the time when we were
accustomed to employ their assistance. Verres was the first
man, ever since our dominion was established, who ordered
that all that money should be paid to him by the cities, in
494 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
order that whoever he chose to appoint might have the hand
ling of that money. Who can doubt why you were the first
man to change the ancient custom of all your predecessors, to
disregard the great advantage of having the money pass
through the hands of others, and to undertake a work of such
difficulty, so liable to accusation, — a task of such delicacy, inse
parable from suspicion 1 After that, other sources of gain are
established arising from this one article of the navy ; just
listen to their number, 0 judges ; — he receives money from
the cities to excuse them from furnishing sailors j the sailors
that are furnished he releases for a bribe ; he makes a profit
of the whole of the pay of those who are thus released ; he
does not pay the rest all that he ought to pay. All this you
shall have proved to you by the evidence of the cities. Read
the evidence of the cities.
\_The evidence of the cities is read.]
XXV. Did you ever hear of such a man 1 Did you ever hear,
0 judges, of such impudence1? of such audacity1? to impose
on the cities the payment of a sum of money in proportion to
the number of soldiers, and to fix a regular price, six hundred
sesterces, for the discharge of each sailor ! and as those who
paid that sum were released from service for the whole sum
mer, Verres pocketed all that he received both for their pay
and for their maintenance. And by this means he made a
double profit of the discharge of one person. And this most
insane of men, at a time of frequent invasion of pirates, and
of imminent danger to the province, did this so openly, that
the pirates themselves were aware of it, and the whole pro
vince was a witness to it.
When, owing to this man's inordinate avarice, there was a
fleet indeed in name in Sicily, but in reality empty ships, fit
only to carry plunder for the prsetor, not to strike terror into
pirates ; nevertheless, while Publius Csesetius and Publius
Tadius were sailing about with these ten half-manned ships,
they, I will not say took, but led away with them one ship,
laden with the spoils of the pirates, evidently overwhelmed
and sinking with the burden of its freight. That vessel was
full of a number of most beautiful quilts, full of quantities of
well-wrought plate, and of coined money ; full of embroidered
robes. This one vessel was not taken by our fleet, but was
found at Megaris, a place not far from Syracuse. And when.
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 495"
the news was brought to him., although he was lying in his
tent on the shore, with a lot of women, drunk, still he roused
himself, and immediately sent to the quaestor and to his own
lieutenant many men to act as guards, in order that every
thing might be brought to him to see in an uninjured state, as
soon as possible. The vessel is brought to Syracuse. All ex
pect that the pirates will be punished. He, as if it was not a
case of pirates being taken, but of a booty being brought to
him, considers all the prisoners who were old or ugly as
enemies ; those who had any beauty, or youth, or skill in any
thing, he takes away: some he distributed among his clerks,
his retinue, and his son ; six skilful musicians he sends to
Rome as a present to some friend of his. All that nio-ht is
spent in unloading the ship. No one sees the captain o the
pirate vessel, who ought to have been executed. And to this
very day every one believes, (how much truth there is in the
belief, you also may be able to conjecture,) that Verres secretly
took money of the pirates for the release of the captain of the
pirates.
XXVI. It is only a conjecture ; but no one can be a good
judge who is not influenced by such certain grounds of suspi
cion. You know the man, you know the custom of all men, — .
how gladly any one who has taken a chief of pirates or of the
enemy, allows him to be seen openly by all men. But of all
the body of citizens and settlers at Syracuse, I never saw one
man, 0 judges, who said that he had seen that captain of the
pirates who had been taken ; though all men, as is the regular
custom, flocked to the prison, asked for him, and were anxious
to see him. What happened to make that man be kept so
carefully out of sight, that no one was ever able to get a
glimpse of him, even by accident ? Though all the seafaring-
men at Syracuse, who had often heard of the name of that
captain, who had often been alarmed by him, wished to feed
their eyes on, and to gratify their minds with his torture and
execution, yet no one was allowed even to see him. One
man, Publius Servilius, took more captains of pirates alive
than all our commanders put together had done before.
Was any one at any time denied the enjoyment of being
allowed to see a captive pirate ? On the contrary : wherever
Servilius went he afforded every one that most de
lightful spectacle, of pirates taken prisoners and in chains.
496 CICEROS ORATIONS.
Therefore, people everywhere ran to meet him, so that they
assembled not only in the towns through which the pirates were
led, but from all neighbouring towns also, for the purpose of
seeing them. And why was it that that triumph was of all
triumphs the most acceptable and the most delightful to the
Roman people 1 Because nothing is sweeter than victory.
But there is no more certain evidence of victory than to see
those whom you have often been afraid of, led in chains to
execution. Why did you not act in this manner? Why was
that pirate so concealed as if it were impiety to behold him?
Why did you not execute him? For what object did you
reserve him ? Have you ever heard of any captain of pirates
having been taken prisoner before, who was not executed ?
Tell me one original whose conduct you imitated ; tell me
one precedent. You kept the captain of the pirates alive in
order, I suppose, to lead him in your triumph in front of
your chariot. For, indeed, there was nothing wanting but
for the naval triumph to be decreed to you on the occasion
of a most beautiful fleet of the Roman people having been
lost, and the province plundered.
XXVII. Come now — you thought it better that the cap
tain of the pirates should be kept in custody, according to a
novel practice, than that he should be put to death according
to universal precedent. What then is that custody ? Among
what people ? Where is he kept ? You have all heard of the
Syracusan stone-quarries. Many of you are acquainted with
them. It is a vast work and splendid ; the work of the old
kings and tyrants. The whole of it is cut out of rock exca
vated to a marvellous depth, and carved out by the labour of
great multitudes of men. Nothing can either be made or ima
gined so closed against all escape, so hedged in on all sides, so
safe for keeping prisoners in. Into these quarries men are com
manded to be brought even from other cities in Sicily, if they
are commanded by the public authorities to be kept in custody.
Because he had imprisoned there many Roman citizens who
were his prisoners, and because he ordered the other pirates
to be put there too, he was aware that if he committed this
counterfeit captain of the pirates to the same custody, a great
many men in those quarries would inquire for the real cap
tain. And therefore he does not venture to commit the man,
to this best ©f all and safest of all places of confinement. In
VI. AGAINST VERRE3. 497
fact he is afraid of the whole of Syracuse. He sends the man
away. Where to 1 Perhaps to Lilybseum. I see ; he was
not then so entirely afraid of the seafaring men 1 By no
means, 0 judges. To Panormus then 1 I understand ;
although indeed, since he was taken within the Syracusan
district, he ought, at all events, to have been kept in prison
at Syracuse, if he was not to be executed there. Not at
Panormus even. What then ? where do you suppose it was ?
He sends him away to men the furthest removed from all
fear or suspicion of pirates, as unconnected as possible with
all navigation or maritime affairs — to the Centuripans, a
thoroughly inland people, complete farmers, who would never
have been alarmed at the name of a naval pirate, but who,
while you were praetor, had lived in dread of that chief of all
land pirates, Apronius. And, that every one might easily see
that Verres's object was, that that counterfeit might easily
and cheerfully pretend to be what he was not, he enjoins the
Centuripans to take care that he is supplied as comfortably
and liberally as possible with food and with all things.
XXVIII. In the meantime, the Syracusans, acute and
humane men, who were capable not only of seeing what was
evident, but also of conjecturing what was hidden, kept an
account every day of the pirates who were put to death ; how
many there ought to be they calculated from the size of the
vessel itself which had been taken, and from the number of
oars. He, because he had removed and taken away all who
had any skill in anything, or any beauty, suspected that there
would be an outcry if he had all the pirates fastened to the
stake at once, as is the usual custom, because so many more
had been taken away than were left : although on this
account he had determined to bring them out in different
parties, at different times, still in the whole city there was no
one who did not keep a strict account and list of them ; and
they did not only wish to see the rest, but they openly de
manded and claimed it. As there was a great number wanting,
that most infamous man began to substitute, in the room of
those of the pirates whom he had taken into his own house,
the Roman citizens whom he had previously thrown into
prison ; some of whom he accused of having been soldiers of
Sertorius, and said that they had been driven on shore in Sicily,
vf hile flying from Spain ; others, who had been taken by pirates,
K K
498 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
•while they were engaged in commerce, or else sailing with some
other object, he accused of having been with the pirates of
their own free will : and therefore some Roman citizens, with
their heads muffled up, that they might not be recognised, were
taken from prison to the fatal stake and to execution ; others,
though they were recognised by many Roman citizens, and
though all attempted to defend them, were put to death. But
of their most shameful death and most cruel tortures I will
speak when I begin to discuss this topic ; and I will speak
with such feelings, that, if in the course of that complaint
which I shall make of that man's cruelty, and of the most
scandalous execution of Roman citizens, not only my strength,
but even my life should fail me, I should think it delightful
and honourable. These then are his exploits, this is his
splendid victory ; a piratical galley was captured, the captain
was released, the musicians were sent to Rome ; those with
any good looks, any youth, or any skill, were taken home by
him ; Roman citizens were tortured and executed in their
room, and to make up their number ; all the store of robes
was taken away, all the silver and gold was taken by him and
appropriated to his own use.
XXIX. But how did he defend himself at the former plead
ing 1 He who had been silent for so many days, on a sudden
sprang up at the evidence of Marcus Annius, a most illus
trious man, when he said that a Roman citizen had been
executed, and that the captain of the pirates had not. Being
roused by the consciousness of his wickedness, and by the
frenzy which was inspired by his crimes, he said that, because
he knew that he should be accused of having taken money,
and of not having executed the real captain of the pirates,
he had on that account not executed him, and he said that
two captains of pirates were now in confinement in his house.
See the clemency, or rather the marvellous and unexampled
patience of the Roman people ! Annius, a Roman knight, '
says that a Roman citizen was put to death by the hand of
the executioner. You say nothing. He says that the captain
of the pirates was not executed. You admit it. At that a
groan and outcry arises from all the assembly; though never-
^heless the Roman people checked themselves, and forbore
to inflict present punishment on you, and left you in safety
for the present, being reserved for the severity of the judges.
VI. AGAINST YERRES. 499
You, who knew that you should be accused, how did you
know it ? how came you ever to suspect it 1 You had no
enemy. Even if you had, still you had not lived in such a
way as to have any fear of a court of justice before your eyes.
Did conscience, as often happens, make you timid and suspi
cious ? Can you, then, who, when you were in command,
were even then in fear of tribunals and accusations, now that
you are on your trial as a criminal, and that the case is proved
against you by so many witnesses, — can you, I say, doubt of
your condemnation ? But if you were afraid of this accusa
tion, — that some one might say that you had substituted some
one else, whom you had caused to be executed for the captain
of the pirates, did you think that it would be a stronger ar
gument in your defence, to produce among strangers a long
time after, (because I required and compelled you to do so,)
a man who you said was the captain of the pirates; or
to execute him, while the affair was still of recent date, at
Syracuse, among people who knew him well, in the sight of
almost all Sicily 1 See how great a difference it makes which
was done. In the one case there could have been no blame
attached to you; in the other you have no defence. And
accordingly, all men have always done the one thing ; but I
can find no one before you yourself, who has ever done the
other. You detained the pirate alive. Till when ? As long
as you were in command. Why did you do so ? On what
account ? According to what precedent ? Why did you
detain him so long ? Why, I say, while the Roman citizens
who were taken in the pirate's company were immediately
put to death, did you give the pirates themselves so long a
lease of life ? However, so be it. Let your conduct be
irresponsible all the time that you were praetor. Did you
still, when you became a private man, and when you became
defendant — ay, and when you were all but condemned, — did
you still, I say, detain the captain of our enemies in your
private house ? One month, a second month, almost a year,
in fact, after they were taken, were the pirates in your house ;
where they would be still, if it had not been for me, that is
to say, if it had not been for Marcus Acilius Glabrio, the
prsetor, who, at my demand, ordered them to be brought up
and to be committed to prison.
XXX. What is the law in such a case 1 What is the
K K 2
500 CICERO S ORATIONS.
general custom ? What are the precedents 1 Can any pri
vate man in the whole world detain within the walls of his
own house the most bitter and unceasing enemy of the Roman
people, or, I should rather say, the common enemy of every
race and nation1? What more shall I say? What would
you say, if the very day before you were compelled by me to
confess that, though you had put Roman citizens to death,
the pirate captain was alive and in your house, — if, I say, the
very day before, he had escaped from your house, and had
been able to collect an army against the Roman people 1
Would you say, " He dwelt with me, he was in my house ; in
order the more easily to refute the accusations of my enemies,
I reserved this man alive and in safety for my trial ?" Is it
so 1 Will you defend yourself from danger, at the risk of
the whole community 1 Will you regulate the time of the
punishments which are due to conquered enemies, by what is
convenient for yourself, not by what is expedient for the
Roman people ? Shall an enemy of the Roman people be
kept in private custody 1 But even those who have triumphs,
and who on that account keep the generals of the enemy
alive a longer time, in order that, while they are led in
triumph, the Roman people may enjoy an ennobling spec
tacle, and a splendid fruit of victory ; nevertheless, when
they begin to turn their chariot from the forum towards the
Capitol, order them to' be taken back to prison, and the same
day brings to the conquerors the end of their authority, and
to the conquered the end of their lives. And now, can I
suppose that any one doubts that you would never have
allowed (especially as you made sure, as you say, that a pro
secution would be instituted against you) that pirate to
escape execution, and to live to increase your danger which
was ever before your eyes 1 For indeed, suppose he had died,
whom could you (who say that you were afraid of a prosecu
tion) have convinced of it 1 When it was notorious that the
captain of the pirates had been seen by no one at Syracuse,
and that all desired to see him ; when 110 one had any doubt
that he had been released by you for a sum of money ; when
it was a common topic of conversation that some one had
been substituted in his place, who you wished to make
believe was the man ; when you yourself had confessed that
you had, for so long a time before, been afraid of that accu-
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 501
sation ; if you had said that he had died, who would have
believed yon 1 Now, when you produce this man of yours,
whoever he may be, still you see that you are laughed at.
What would you have done if he had escaped ? if he had
broken his bonds, as Nico, that most celebrated pirate did,
who was afterwards retaken by Publius Servilius, with the
same good fortune as he had originally taken him with ; what
would you have said then 1 But the case was this. — If once
that real captain of the pirates was put to death, you would
not get that money. If this counterfeit one had died or
had escaped, it would not have been difficult to substitute
another in the room of one who was himself only a substitute.
I have said more than I intended of that pirate captain ; and
yet I have passed over those things which are the most cer
tain proofs of this crime. For I wish the whole of this accu
sation to remain untouched for the present. There is a
certain place for its discussion, a certain law to be mentioned
in connexion with it, a certain tribunal for whose judgment
it is reserved.
XXXI. Though enriched with all this booty, with these
slaves, with this silver plate, and these robes, he was still no
more diligent than before in equipping the fleet, in recalling
and provisioning the troops ; though that would not only
have tended to the safety of the province, but might have
been even profitable to himself. For in the height of sum
mer, when all other praetors have been accustomed to visit
all the province, and to travel about, or to sail about, — at a
time when there was such fear of and such danger from the
pirates ; at that time he was not content, for the purpose of
his luxury and lust, with his own kingly palace which had
belonged to king Hiero, and which the praetors are in the
habit of using. He ordered, as I have stated already, tents,
such as he was wont to use at the summer season, erected of
fine linen curtains, to be pitched on the sea-shore ; on that
part of the shore which is within the island of Syracuse,
behind the fountain of Arethusa ; close to the entrance and
mouth of the harbour, in a very pleasant situation, and one
far enough, removed from overlookers. Here the pi'aetor of
the Roman people, the guardian and defender of the province,
lived for sixty days of the summer in such a style that he had
banquets of women every day, while no man was admitted
502 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
except himself and his youthful son. Although, indeed, I
might have made no exception, but might have said that
there was no man there at all, as there were only these two.
Sometimes also his freedman Timarchides was admitted.
But the women were all wives of citizens, of noble birth,
except one, the daughter of an actor named Isidorus, whom
he, out of love, had seduced away from a Rhodian flute-player.
There was a woman called Pippa, the wife of JSschrio the
Syracusan, concerning which woman many verses, which
were made on Verres's fondness for her, are quoted over all
Sicily. There was a woman too, called Nice, with a very
beautiful face, as it is said, the wife of Cleomenes the Syra
cusan. Cleomenes, her husband, was greatly attached to her,
but still he had neither the power nor the courage to oppose
the lust of the praetor ; and at the same time he was bound
to him by many presents and many good offices. But at
that time Verres, though you well know how great his im
pudence is, still could not, as her husband was at Syracuse,
be quite easy in his mind at keeping her with him so many
days on the sea-shore. Accordingly, he contrives a very sin
gular plan. He gives the command of the fleet, which his
lieutenant had had, to Cleomenes. He orders Cleomenes, a
Syracusan, to command a fleet of the Roman people. He
does this, in order that he might not only be absent from
home all the time that he was at sea, but that he might be
so willingly, being placed in a post of great honour and profit ;
and that he himself in the meantime, the husband being sent
away to a distance, might have her with him, — I will not say
more easily than before, for who ever opposed his lust 1 but
with a rather more tranquil mind, as he had got rid of him,
not as a husband but as a rival. — Cleomenes, a Syracusan,
takes the command of a fleet of our allies and friends.
XXXII. What topic of accusation or complaint shall I
urge first, 0 judges ? That the power, and honour, and
authority of a lieutenant, of a quaestor, ay, even of a praetor,
was given to a Sicilian ? If you were so occupied with feasts
and women as to be prevented from taking the command
yourself, where were your quaestors ? where were your lieute
nants 1 where was the corn valued at three denarii ? where
were the mules ? where were the tents 1 where were all the
numerous and splendid badges of honour conferred and
VI. AGAINST VERBES. 503
bestowed by the senate and people of Eome on their magis
trates and lieutenants 1 Lastly, where were your prefects
and tribunes 'I If there was no Roman citizen worthy of
that employment, what had become of the cities which had
always remained true to the alliance and friendship of the
Roman people 1 What had become of the city of Segesta ?
of the city of Centuripa ? which both by old services, by good
faith, by antiquity of alliance, and even by relationship, are
connected with the name of the Roman people. 0 ye im
mortal gods! what shall we say, when Cleomenes, a Syra-
cusan, is ordered to command the soldiers, and the ships, and
the officers of these very cities '? Has not Verres by such an
action taken away all the honour due to worth, to justice,
and to old services 1 Have we ever once waged war in Sicily,
that we have not had the Centuripans for our friends, and the
Syracusans for our enemies 1 And I am speaking now only
by way of recollection of past time, not as meaning insult to
that city. And therefore that most illustrious man and con
summate general, Marcus Marcellus, by whose valour Syra
cuse was taken, by whose clemency it was preserved, forbade
any Syracusan to dwell in that part of the city which is called
the Island. To this day, I say, it is contrary to law for any
Syracusan to dwell in that part of the city. For it is a place
which even a very few men can defend. And therefore he
would not entrust it to any but the most faithful men ; and
he had another reason too, because in that part of the city
there is access to ships from the open sea. Therefore he did
not think fit to entrust the keys of the place to those who
had often excluded our armies. See now how great is the
difference between your lust and the authority of our ances
tors ; between your love and frenzy, and their wisdom and
prudence. They took away from the Syracusans all access to
the shore; you have given them the command of the sea.
They would not allow a Syracusan to dwell in that part of
the city which ships could approach ; you appointed a Syra
cusan to command the fleet and the ships. You gave those
men a part of our sovereignty, from whom they took a part
of their own city ; and you ordered those allies of ours to
be obedient to the Syracusans, to whose aid it is owing that
the Syracusans are obedient to us.
XXXIII. Cleomenes leaves the harbour in a Centuripan
504 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
trireme. A Segestan vessel comes next ; then a Tyndaritan
ship ; then one from Herbita, one from Heraclia, one from
Apollonia, one from Haluntium ; a fine fleet to look at,
but helpless and useless because of the discharge of its fighting
men, and of its rowers. That diligent praetor surveyed the
fleet under his orders, as long as it was passing by his scene
of profligate revelry. And he too, who for many days had
not been seen, then for a short time afforded the sailors a
sight of himself. The praetor of the Roman people stood in
his slippers, clad in a pm*ple cloak, and a tunic reaching
down to his ancles, leaning on a prostitute on the shore. And
since that time, many Sicilians and Roman citizens have often
seen him in this very dress. After the fleet had proceeded a
little way, and had arrived, after five days' sailing, at Pachy-
num, the sailors, being compelled by hunger, gather the roots
of the wild palm, of which there was a great quantity in that
neighbourhood, as there is in most parts of Sicily, and sup
port themselves in a miserable and wretched way on these.
But Cleomenes, who considered himself another Verres, not
only in luxury and worthlessness, but in power also, spent,
like him, all his days in di-inking in a tent which he had
pitched on the sea-shore.
XXXIV. But all of a sudden, while Cleomenes was drunk,
and all his crews famishing, news is brought that a fleet of
pirates is in the harbour of Odyssca ; for that is the name of
the place. But our fleet was in the harbour of Pachynum.
But Cleomenes, because there was a garrison of troops (in
name, if not in reality) in that place, fancied that, with the
soldiers he drew from thence, he might make up his proper
complement of sailors and rowers. The same system was
found to have been put in practice by that most covetous
man with respect to the troops, that had been adopted towards
the fleet, for only a few remained, and the rest had been
discharged. Cleomenes, as commander-in-chief, in a Centu-
ripan quadrireme ordered the mast to be erected, the sails to
be set, the anchor to be weighed, and made signal for the rest
of the ships to follow him. This Centuripan vessel was an
extraordinarily fast sailer ; for, while Verres was praetor, no
one had any opportunity of knowing what each ship could do
with oars ; although in order to do honour and to show favour
to Cleomenes, there was a much smaller deficiency of rowers
VI. AGAINST VEflRES. 505
and soldiers in that quadrireme. The quadrireme, almost
flying, had already got out of sight, while the other ships
were still hard at work in their original station. However,
those who were left behind displayed a good deal of courage.
Although they were few in numbers, still they cried out, that
whatever might be the event, they were willing to fight ; and
they preferred losing by the sword the little life and strength
that hunger had left them. And if Cleomenes had not run
away so long before, there would have been some means of
making resistance, for that ship was the only one with a deck,
and was large enough to have been a bulwark to the rest ,
and if it had been engaged in battle with the pirates, it would
have looked like a city among those piratical galleys ; but at
that time the sailors being helpless, and deserted by their
commander and prefect of the fleet, began of necessity to hold
the same course that he had held ; accordingly they all sailed
towards Elorum, as Cleomenes had done ; but they indeed
were not so much flying from the attack of the pirates as
following their commander. Then as each was last in flight,
he was first in danger, for the pirates came upon the las
ships first, and so the Haluntian vessel is taken first, which
was commanded by an Haluntian of noble birth, Philarchus by
name, whom the Locrians afterwards ransomed at the public
expense from those pirates, and from whom, on his oath, you
at the former plaeding learnt the whole of the circumstances
and their cause. The Apollonian vessel is taken next, and
Anthropinus, its captain, is slain.
XXXV. While all this was going on, in the meantime
Cleonaeiies had already arrived at Elorum, already he had
hastened on land from the ship, and had left the quadrireme
tossing about in the surf. The rest of the captains of ships,
when the commander-in-chief had landed, as they had no pos
sible means either of resisting or of escaping by sea, ran their
ships ashore at Elorum, and followed Cleomenes. Then
Heracleo, the captain of the pirates, being suddenly victorious,
beyond all his hopes, not through any valour of his own, but
owing to the avarice and worthlessuess of Verres, as soon as
evening came on, ordered a most beautiful fleet belonging to
the Roman people, having been driven on shore and aban
doned, to be set fire to and burnt. 0 what a miserable and
bitter time for the province of Sicily ! 0 what an event, cala
mitous and fatal to many innocent people ! 0 what unexam-
SOS CICERO'S ORATIONS.
Died worthlessness and infamy of that man ! On one and the
same night, the prsetor was burning with the flame of the most
disgraceful love, a fleet of the Koman people with the fire of
pirates. It was a stormy night when the news of this terrible
disaster was brought to Syracuse — men run to the praetor's
house, to which his women had conducted him back a little
while before from his splended banquet, with songs and music.
Cleomenes, although it was night, still does not dare to show
himself in public. He shuts himself up in his house, but his
wife was not there to console her husband in his misfortunes.
But the discipline of this noble commander-in-chief was so
strict in his own house, that though the event was so im
portant, the news so serious, still no one could be admitted ;
no one dared either to wake him if asleep, or to address him
if awake. But now, when the affair had become known to
everybody, a vast multitude was collecting in every part of
the city; for the arrival of the pirates was not given notice of,
as had formerly been the custom, by a fire raised on a watch-
tower, or a hill, but both the disaster that had already
been sustained, and the danger that was impending, were
notified by the conflagration of the fleet itself.
XXXVI. When the prsetor was inquired for, and when it
was plain that no one had told him the news, a rush of people
towards his house takes place with great impetuosity and
loud cries. Then, he himself,- being roused, comes forth ; he
hears the whole news from Timarchides ; he takes his mili
tary cloak. It was now nearly dawn. He comes forth into
the middle of the crowd, bewildered with wine, and sleep, and
debauchery. He is received by all with such a shout that it
seemed to bring before his eyes a resemblance to the dangers
of Lampsacus.1 But this present appeared greater than that,
because, though both the mobs hated him equally, the num
bers here were much greater. People began to talk to one
another of his tent on the shore, of his flagitious banquets ;
the names of his women were called out by the crowd ; men
asked him openly where he had been, and what he had been
doing for so many days together, during which no one had
seen him. Then they demanded Cleomenes, who had been
appinted commander-in-chief by him ; and nothing was ever
nearer happening than the transference of the precedent of
1 Sec the first book of this second pleading, c. 26.
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 507
Utica in the case of Hadrian1 to Syracuse ; so that two graves
of two most infamous governors would have been contained
in two provinces. However, regard was had by the multitude
to the time, regard was had to the impending danger, regard
was had, too, to their common dignity and character, because
the body of settlers of Roman citizens at Syracuse is such as
to be considered the most dignified body, not only in that
province, but even in this republic. They all encourage one
another, while he is still half asleep and stupified ; they take
arms ; they fill the whole forum and the island, which is
a considerable portion of the whole city. The pirates having
remained at Elorum that single night, left our ships still
smoking, and began to sail to Syracuse ; for as they, forsooth,
had often heard that nothing could be finer than the fortifi
cations and harbour of Syracuse, they had made up their
minds that if they did not see them while Verres was praetoi*,
they should never see them at all.
XXXVII. And first of all they came to those summer quar
ters of the prsetor, landing at that very part of the shore where
he, having pitched his tents, had set up his camp of luxury
while all this was going on. But when they found the place
empty, and undei'stood that the praetor had removed his
quarters from that place, they immediately, without any fear,
began to penetrate to the harbour itself. When I say into
the harbour, 0 judges, (for I must explain myself carefully
for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the place,)
I mean that the pirates came into the city, and into the most
central parts of the city ; for that town is not closed in by the
harbour, but the harbour itself is surrounded and closed in
by the town ; so that it is not only the innermost walls that
are washed by the sea, but the harbour, if I may so say,
flows into the very bosom of the city. Here, while you were
preotor, Heracleo, the captain of the pirates, with four small
galleys, sailed about at his pleasure. 0 ye immortal gods !
a piratical galley, while the representative of the Roman
people, its name and its forces were all in Syracuse, came up
to the very forum, and to all the quays of the city. Those
most glorious fleets of the Carthaginians, when they were at
the very height of their naval power, though they often made
1 See the 27th chapter of the first book of the second pleading
against Verres.
508 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
the attempt in many wars, were never able to advance so far.
Even the naval glory of the Roman people, invincible as it
was till your prsetorship, in all the Punic and Sicilian wars
never penetrated so far. The situation of the place is such
that the Syracusans usually saw their enemies armed and
victorious within their walls, in the city, and in the forum,
before they saw any enemy's ship in their harbour. Here,
while you were prsetor, galleys of pirates sailed about, where
previously the only fleet that had ever entered in the history
of the world, was the Athenian fleet of three hundred ships,
which forced its way in by its weight and its numbers ; and
that fleet was in that very harbour defeated and destroyed,
owing to the natural character of the place and hai'bour.
Here first was the power of that splendid city defeated,
weakened, and impaired. In this harbour, shipwreck was
made of the nobleness and dominion and glory of Athens.1
XXXVIII. Did a pirate penetrate to that part of the city
which he could not approach without leaving a great part of
the city not only on his flanks but in his rear ? He passed
by the whole island, which is at Syracuse a very considerable
part of the city, having its own distinct name, and separate
walls ; in which part, as I said before, our ancestors forbade
any Syracusan to dwell, because they knew that the harbour
would be in the power of whatever people were occupying
that district of the city. And how did he wander through
it ? He threw down around him the roots of the wild palms
which he had found in our ships, in order that all men might
become acquainted with the dishonesty of Verres, and the
disaster of Sicily. 0 that Sicilian soldiers, children of those
cultivators of the soil whose fathers produced such crops of
corn by their labour that they were able to supply the
Roman people and the whole of Italy, — that they, born in the
island of Ceres, where corn is said to have been first disco
vered, should have been driven to use such food as their
ancestors, by the discovery of corn, had delivered all other
nations from ! While you were preetor the Sicilian soldiers
were fed on the roots of wild palms, pirates on Sicilian corn.
0 miserable and bitter spectacle ! that the glory of the city
and the name of the Roman people should be a laughing
stock ; that in the face of all that body of inhabitants and all
1 See the seventh book of Thucydides.
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 509
that multitude of people, a pirate in a piratical galley should
celebrate a triumph in the harbour of Syracuse over a fleet
of the Koman people, while the oars of the pirates were
actually besprinkling the eyes of that most worthless and
cowardly praetor.
After the pirates had left the harbour, not because of any
alarm, but because they were weary of staying there, these
men began to inquire the cause of so great a disaster. All
began to say, and to argue openly, that it was by no means
strange, that when the soldiers and the crews had been dis
missed, and the rest had been destroyed by want and famine,
while the praetor was spending all his time in drinking with
his women, such a disgrace and calamity should have fallen
upon them. And all the reproaches which they heaped upon
him, all the infamy that they attributed to him, was confirmed
by the statements of those men who had been appointed by
their own cities to command their ships; the rest of whom
had fled to Syracuse after the loss of the fleet. Each of them
stated how many men they knew had been discharged out of
their respective ships. The matter was clear, and his avarice
was proved not only by arguments, but also by undeniable
witnesses.
XXXIX. The man is informed that nothing is done in the
forum and in the assembly all that day, except putting ques
tions to the naval captains how the fleet was lost. That they
made answer, and informed every one that it was owing to
the discharge of the rowers, the want of food of the rest, the
cowardice and desertion of Cleomenes. And when he heard
this, he began to form this design. He had long since made
up his mind that a prosecution would be instituted against
him, long before this happened, as you have heard him say
himself at the former pleading. He saw that if those naval
captains were produced as witnesses against him, he should
not be able to stand against so serious an accusation. He
forms at first a plan, foolish indeed, but still merciful. He
orders Cleomenes and the naval captains to be summoned
before him. They come. He accuses them of having held
this language about himself; he begs them to cease from
holding it ; and begs every one there to say that he had had
in his ship as large a crew as he ought to have had, and that
none had been discharged. They promise him to d@ what-
510 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
ever he wished. He does not delay. He immediately sum
mons his friends. He then asks of all the captains separately
how many sailors each had had on board his ship. Each of
them answers as he had been enjoined to. He makes an
entry of their answers in his journal. He seals it up, pru
dent man that he is, with the seals of his friends ; in order,
forsooth, to use this evidence against this charge, if ever it
should be necessary. I imagine that senseless man must have
been laughed at by his own counsellors, and warned that
these documents would do him no good; that if the charge
were made, there would be even more suspicion owing to
these extraordinary precautions of the prsetor. He had already
behaved with such folly in many cases, as even publicly to
order whatever he pleased to be expunged out of, or entered
in the records of different cities. All which things he now
finds out are of no use to him, since he is convicted by
documents, and witnesses, and authorities which are all
undeniable.
XL. When he sees that their confession, and all the evi
dence which he has manufactured, and his journals, will be of
no use to him, he then adopts the design, not of a worthless
praetor, (for even that might have been endured,) but an in
human and senseless tyrant. He determines, that if he wishes
to palliate that accusation, (for he did not suppose that he
could get rid of it altogether,) all the naval captains, the
witnesses of his wickedness, must be put to death. The next
consideration was, — " What am I to do with Cleomenes ?
Can I put those men to death whom I placed under his com
mand, and spare him whom I placed in command and au
thority over them 1 Can I punish those men who followed
Cleomenes, and pardon Cleomenes who bade them fly with
him, and follow him ? Can I be severe to those men who had
vessels not only devoid of crews, but devoid of decks, and be
merciful to him who was the only man who had a decked
ship, and whose ship, too, was not stripped bare like those
of the others?" Cleomenes must die too. What signify
his promises ? what do the curses that he will heap on him 1
what do the pledges of friendship and mutual embraces?
what does that comradeship in the service of a woman on
that most luxurious sea-shore signify ? It was utterly impos
sible that Cleomenes could be spared. He summons Cleo-
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 511
menes. He tells him that he has made up his mind to
execute all the naval captains ; that considerations of his own
personal danger required such a step. " I will spare you
alone, and I will endure the blame of all that disaster myself,
and all possible reproaches for my inconsistency, rather thau
act cruelly to you on the one hand, or, on the other hand,
leave so many and such important witnesses against me in
safety and in life." Cleomenes thanks him; approves of his
intention ; and says that that is what must be done. But he
reminds him, of what he had forgotten, that it will not be
possible for him to put Phalargus the Centuripan, one of the
naval captains, to death, because he had been with him him
self in the Centuripan quadrireme. What, then, is he to do ?
Shall that man, of such a city as that, a most noble youth,
be left to be a witness ? At present, says Cleomenes, for it
must be so; but afterwards we will take care that it shall be
put out of his power to injure us.
XLI. After all this was settled and determined, Verres im
mediately advances from his prtetorian house, inflamed with
wickedness, frenzy, and cruelty. He comes into the forum.
He orders the naval captains to be summoned. They imme
diately come with all speed, as men who were afraid of nothing,
and suspected nothing. He orders those unhappy and inno
cent men to be loaded with chains. They began to invoke
the good faith of the preetor, and to ask why he did so ?
Then he says that this is the reason, — because they had be
trayed the fleet to the pirates. There is a great outcry, and
great astonishment on the part of the people, that there should
be so much impudence and audacity in the man as to attri
bute to others the origin of a calamity which had happened
entirely owing to his own avarice ; or to bring against others
a charge of treason, when he himself was thought to be a
partner of the pirates ; and lastly, they marvelled at this
charge not being originated till fifteen days after the fleet had
been lost. While these things were happening, inquiry was
made where Cleomenes was; not that any one thought him,
such as he was, worthy of any punishment for that disaster ;
for what could Cleomenes have done, (for it is not in my
nature to accuse any one falsely,) — what, I say, could Cleo
menes have done of any consequence, when his ships had been
dismantled by .the avarice of Verres ? And they see him sit-
512 CICERO'S ORATIOXS.
ting by the side of the prsetor, and whispering familiarly in
his ear, as he was accustomed to do. But then it did seem a
most scandalous thing to every one, that most honourable
men, chosen by their own cities, should be put in chains and
in prison, but that Cleomenes, on account of his partnership
with him in debauchery and infamy, should be the praetor's
most familiar friend. However, an accuser is produced against
them, a certain Nsevius Turpio, who, when Caius Sacerdos
was prcetor, had been convicted of an assault ; a very suitable
tool for the audacity of Verres; a man whom he had fre
quently employed in matters connected with the tenths, in
capital prosecutions, and in every sort of false accusation, as
a scout and emissary.
XLII. The parents and relations of these unfortunate
young men came to Syracuse, being aroused by the sudden
news of this misfortune. They see their children loaded with
chains, bearing on their necks and shoulders the punishment
due to the avarice of Verres. They come forward, they defend
them, they raise an outcry; they implore your good faith
which at no time and no place had ever any existence. The
father of one came forward, Dexis the Tyndaritan ; a man of
the noblest family, connected by ties of hospitality with you
yourself; at whose house you had been, whom you had called
your friend. When you saw him, a man of such high rank,
in such distress, could not his tears, could not his old age,
could not the claims of hospitality and the name of friend
recal you back from your wickedness to some degree of hu
manity? But why do I speak of the claims of hospitality
with reference to so inhuman a monster? He who entered
Sthenius of Thermae, his own connexion, whose house, while
received in it in hospitality, he had plundered and stripped,
in the list of criminals in his absence, and who, without
allowing him to make any defence, condemned him to death;
are we now to expect the claims and duties of hospitality from
him? Are we dealing with a cruel man, or with a savage
and inhuman monster ? Could not the tears of a father for
the danger of his innocent son move you ? As you had left
your father at home, and kept your son with you, did neither
your son who was present remind you of the affection of chil
dren, nor your father who was absent call to your recollection
the indulgence of a father? Your friend Aristeus, the son of
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 513
Dexion, was in chains. Why was this ? He had betrayed the
fleet. For what bribe 1 He had deserted the army. What
had Cleomenes done 1 He had done nothing at all. Yet you
had presented him with a golden crown for his valour. He
had discharged the sailors. But you had received from them
all the price of their discharge. Another father, from another
district, was Eubulida of Herlita : a man of great reputation
in his city, and of high birth; who, because he had injured
Cleornenes in defending his son, had been left nearly desti
tute. But what was there which any one could say or allege in
his defence 1 They are not allowed to name Cleomenes. But
the cause compels them to do so. You shall die if you do
name him, (for he never threatened any one with trifling
punishment.) But there were no rowers. What ! are you
accusing the praetor ? Break his neck. If one is not allowed to
name either the prsetor, or the rival of the prsetor, when the
whole case turns on the conduct of these two men, what is to
be done 1
XLIII. Heraclius of Segesta also pleads his cause; a man
of the very noblest descent in his own city. Listen, 0 judges,
as your humanity requires of you, for you will hear of great
cruelties and inj uries inflicted on the allies. Know then that
the case of Heraclius was this : — that on account of a severe
complaint in his eyes he had not gone to sea at all ; but
by his order who had the command, he had remained in
his quarters at Syracuse. He certainly never betrayed the
fleet ; he did not run away in a fright ; he did not desert the
army ; if he had, he might have been punished when the
fleet was setting out from Syracuse. But he was in just the
same condition as if he had been detected in some manifest
crime ; though no charge at all could be brought against him,
not ever so falsely. Among these naval captains was a citizen
of Heraclia, of the name of Junius, (for they have some Latin
names of that sort,) a man, as long as he lived, illustrious in
his own city, and after his death celebrated over all Sicily.
In that man there was courage enough, not only to attack
Verres, for that indeed, as he saw that he was sure to die, he
was a^?.re that he could do without any danger ; but when
his death was settled, while his mother was sitting in his prison,
night and day weeping, he wrote out the defence which his
cause required ; and now there is no one in all Sicily who is
L L
CICERO S ORATIONS.
not in possession of that defence, who does not read it, who is
not constantly reminded by that oration, of your wickedness
and crueltv. In it he states how many sailors he received
from his city ; how many Verres discharged, and for how
much he discharged each of them ; how many he had left.
He makes similar statements with respect to the other ships;
and when he uttered these statements before you, he was
scourged on the eyes. But when death was staring him in
the face, he could easily endure pain of body ; he cried out,
what he has left also in writing, " That it was an infamous
thing that the tears of an unchaste woman on behalf of the
safety of Cleomenes should have more influence with you,
than those of his mother for his life." Afterwards I see that
this also is stated, which, if the Roman people has formed a
correct estimate of your characters, 0 judges, he, at the very
hour of death, truly prophesied of you, — " That it was not
possible for Verres to efface his own crimes by murdering the
witnesses ; that he, in the shades below, should be a still more
serious witness against him, in the opinion of sensible judges,
than if he were produced alive in a court of justice ; for that
then, if he were alive he would only be a witness to prove his
avarice ; but now, when he had been put to death, he should
be a witness of his wickedness, and audacity, and cruelty."
"What follows is very fine, — " That, when your cause came to
be tried, it would not be only the bands of witnesses, but the
punishments inflicted on the innocent, and the furies that
haunt the wicked, that would attend your trial; that he
thought his own misfortune the lighter, because he had seen
before now the edge of your axes, and the countenance and
hand of Sextus your executioner, when in an assembly of Roman
citizens, Roman citizens were publicly executed by your com
mand." Not to dwell too long on this, Junius used most
freely that liberty which you have given the allies, even at the
moment of bitter punishment, such as was only fit for slaves.
XLIV. He condemns them all, with the approval of his
assessors. And yet, in so important an affair, in a cause in which
so many men and so many citizens were concerned, he neither
sent for Publius Vettius, his quaestor, to take his advice ; nor
for Publius Cervius, an admirable man, his lieutenant, who,
because he had been lieutenant in Sicily, while he was prsetor,
was the first man rejected by him as a judge ; but he con-
VI. AGAINST VKRRES. 515
demns them all in conformity with the opinion expressed by a
lot of robbers, that is, by his own retinue. On this all the
Sicilians, our most faithful and most ancient allies, who have
had the greatest kindnesses conferred on them by our ancestors,
were greatly agitated, and alarmed at their own danger, and at
the peril of all their fortunes. That that noted clemency and
mildness of our dominion should have been changed into such
cruelty and inhumanity ! That so many men should be con
demned at one time for no crime ! That that infamous praetor
should seek for a defence for his own robberies by the most
shameful murder of innocent men ! Nothing, 0 judges, appears
possible to be added to such wickedness, insanity, and barbarity
— and it is true that nothing can ; for if it be compared with
the iniquity of other men it will greatly surpass it all. But
he is his own rival ; his object is always to oiitdo his last
crime by some new wickedness. I had said that Phalargus
the Centuripan was made an exception by Cleomenes, because
he had sailed in his quadrireme. Still because that young
man was alarmed, as he saw that his case was identical with
that of those men who had been put to death, though per
fectly innocent; Timarchides came to him, and tells him that
lie is in no danger at all of being put to death, but warns him
to take care lest he should be sentenced to be scourged. To
make my story short, yoii heard the young man himself
say, that because of his fear of being scourged he paid money
to Timarchides. These are but light crimes in such a criminal
as this. A naval captain of a most noble city ransoms him
self from the danger of being scoui'ged with a bribe — it was
a human weakness. Another gave money to save himself
from being condemned — it is a common thing. The Roman
people does not wish Verres to be prosecuted on obsolete accusa
tions ; it demands new charges against him ; it requires some
thing which it has not heard before ; it thinks that it is not
a prsetor of Sicily, but some most cruel tyrant that is being
brought before the court.
XLV. The condemned men are consigned to prison. They
are sentenced to execution. Even the wretched parents of
the naval captains are punished ; they are prevented from
visiting their sons ; they are prevented from supplying their
own children with food and raiment. These very fathers,
whom you see here, lay on the threshold, and the wretched
L L2
51 G CICERO S ORATIONS
mothers spent their nights at the door of the prison, denied
the parting embrace of their children, though they prayed for
nothing but to be allowed to receive their sons' dying breath.
The porter of the prison, the executioner of the prsetor, was
there ; the death and terror of both allies and citizens ; the
lictor Sextius, to whom every groan and every agony of every
one was a certain gain. — " To visit him, you must give so
much ; to be allowed to take him food into the prison, so
much." No one refused. " What now, what will you give
me to put your son to death at one blow of my axe 1 to save
him from longer torture 1 to spare him repeated blows ? to
take care that he shall give up the ghost without any sense
of pain or torture ?" Even for this object money was given
to the lictor. Oh great and intolerable agony ! oh terrible
and bitter ill-fortune ! Parents were compelled to purchase,
not the life of their children, but a swiftness of execution for
them. And the young men themselves also negotiated with
Sextius about the same execution, and about that one blow ;
and at last, children entreated their parents to give money to
the lictor for the sake of shortening their sufferings. Many
and terrible sufferings have been invented for parents and
relations ; many — still death is the last of all. It shall not
be. Is there any further advance that cruelty can make ?
One shall be found — for, when their children have been exe
cuted and slain, their bodies shall be exposed to wild beasts.
If this is a miserable thing for a parent to endure, let him pay
money for leave to bury him. You heard Onasus the Segestan,
a man of noble birth, say that he had paid money toTimarchides
for leave to bury the naval captain, Heraclius. And this
(that you may not be able to say, " Yes, the fathers come,
angry at the loss of their sons,") is stated by a man of the
highest consideration, a man of the noblest birth j and he
does not state it with respect to any son of his own. And as
to this, who was there at Syracuse at that time, who did not
hear, and who does not know that these bargains for per
mission to bury were made with Timarchides by the living
relations of those who had been put to death 1 Did they not
speak openly with Timarchides ? Were not all the relations
of all the men present 1 Were not the funerals of living men
openly bargained for 1 And then, when all those matters were
settled and arranged, the men are brought out of prison and
tied to the stake.
VI. AGAINST VEREES. 517
XLVI. Who at that time was so cruel and hard-hearted,
who was so inhuman, except you alone, as not to be moved
by their youth, their high birth, and their misfortunes 1 Who
was there who did not Aveep ? who did not feel their cala
mity, as if he thought that it was not the fortune of others
alone, but the common safety of all that was at stake 1 They
are executed. You rejoice and triumph at the universal
misery ; you are delighted that the witnesses of .your avarice
are put out of the way : you were mistaken, 0 Verres, you
were greatly mistaken, when you thought that you could
wash out the stains of your thefts and iniquities in the blood
of our innocent allies. You were borne on headlong in your
frenzy, when you thought that you could heal the wounds of
your avarice by applying remedies of inhumanity. In truth,
although those who were the witnesses of your wickedness
are dead, yet their relations are wanting neither to you nor
to them ; yet, out of that very body of naval captains some
are alive, and are present here ; whom, as it seems to me,
fortune saved out of that punishment of innocent men, for
this trial. Philarchus the Haluntian is present, who, because
he did not flee with Cleomenes, was overwhelmed by the
pirates, and taken prisoner ; whose misfortune was his safety,
who, if he had not been taken prisoner by the pirates, would
have fallen into the power of this partner of pirates. He
will give his evidence, concerning the discharge of the sailors,
the want of provisions, and the flight of Cleomenes, Pha-
largus the Centuripan is present, born in a most honourable
city, and in a most honourable rank. He tells you the same
thing ; he differs from the other in no particular.
In the name of the immortal gods, 0 judges, with what
feelings are you sitting there 1 or with what feelings are you
hearing these things ? Am I out of my mind, and am I
grieving more than I ought amid such disasters and dis
tresses of our allies ? or does this most bitter torture and
agony of innocent men affect you also with an equal sense of
pain 1 For when I say that a Herbitan, that a Heraclean was
put to death, I see before my eyes all the indignity of that
misfortune.
XLVII. That the citizens of those states, that the popula
tion of those lands, by whom and by whose care and labour
an immense quantity of corn is procured every year for the
518 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
Roman people, who were brought up and educated by their
parents in the hope of our paternal rule, and of our justice,
should have been reserved for the nefarious inhumanity of
Caius Verres, and for his fatal axe ! When the thought of
that unhappy Tyndaritan, and of that Segestan, comes across
me, then I consider at the same time the rights of the cities,
and their duties. Those cities which Publius Africanus thought
fit to be adorned with the spoils of the enemy, those Caius
Verres has stripped, not only of those ornaments, but even
of their noblest citizens, by the most abominable wickedness.
See what the people of Tyndaris will willingly state. " We
were not among the seventeen tribes of Sicily. We, in all
the Punic and Sicilian wars, always adhered to the friendship
and alliance of the Roman people ; all possible aid in war, all
attention and service in peace, has been at all times rendered
by us to the Roman people." Much, however, did their rights
avail them, under that man's authority and government !
Scipio once led your sailors against Carthage ; but now
Cleomenes leads ships that are almost dismantled against
pirates. " Africamis," says he, " shared with you the spoils
of the enemy, and the reward of glory ; but now, you, having
been plundered by me, having had your vessel taken away by
the ph-ates, are considered in the number and class of enemies."
What more shall I say ? what advantages did that relationship
of the Segestans to us, not only stated in old papers, and
commemorated in words, but adopted and proved by many
good offices of theirs towards us, bring to them under the
government of that man 1 Just this much, 0 judges, that a
young man of the highest rank was torn from his father's
bosom, an innocent son from his mother's embrace, and given
to that man's executioner, Sextius. That city to which our
ancestors gave most extensive and valuable lands, which they
exempted from tribute ; this city, with all the weight of its
relationship to us, of its loyalty, and of its ancient alliance
with us, could not obtain even this privilege, of being allowed
to avert by its prayers the death and execution of one most
honourable and most innocent citizen.
XLVIII. Whither shall the allies flee for refuge 1 Whose
help shall they implore 1 by what hope shall they still be
retained in the desire to live, if you abandon them ? Shall
they come to the senate and beg them to punish Verres?
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 519
That is not a usual course ; it is not in accordance with the
duty of the senate. Shall they betake themselves to the
Roman people 1 The people will easily find an excuse ; for
they will say that they have established a law for the sake of
the allies, and that they have appointed you as guardians and
vindicators of that law. This then is the only place to which
they can flee ; this is the harbour, this is the citadel, this is
the altar of the allies ; to which indeed they do not at
present betake themselves with the same views as they
formerly used to entertain in seeking to recover their property.
They are not seeking to recover silver, nor gold, nor robes,
nor slaves, nor ornaments which have been carried off from
their cities and their temples ;— they fear, like ignorant men,
that the Roman people now allows such things and permits
them to be done. For we have now for many years been
suffering, and we are silent when we see that all the money of
all the nations has come into the hands of a few men ; which
we seem to tolerate and to permit with the more equanimity,
because none of these robbers conceals what he is doing ; none
of them take the least trouble to keep their covetousness in
any obscurity. In our most beautiful and highly decorated
city what statue, or what painting is there, which has not
been taken and brought away from conquered enemies 1 But
the villas of those men are adorned and filled with numerous
and most beautiful spoils of our most faithful allies. Where
do you think is the wealth of foreign nations, which they are
all now deprived of, when you see Athens, Pergamos, Cyzicus,
Miletus, Chios, Samos, all Asia in short, and Achaia, and
Greece, and Sicily, now all contained in a few villas 1 But all
these things, as I was saying, your allies abandon and are
indifferent to now. They took care by their own services and
loyalty not to be deprived of their property by the public
authority of the Roman people ; though they were unable to
resist the covetousness of a few individuals, yet they could in
some degree satiate it ; but now not only is all their power of
resisting taken away, but also all their means also of supply
ing such demands. Therefore they do not care about their
property ; they do not seek to recover their money, though
that is nominally the subject of this prosecution ; that they
abandon and are indifferent to ; — in this dress in which you
see them they now fly to you.
520 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
XLTX. Behold, behold, 0 judges, the miserable and squalid
condition of our allies. Sthenius, the Thermitan, whom you
see here, with this uncombed hair and mourning robe, though
his whole house has been stripped of everything, makes no
mention of your robberies, 0 Verres ; he claims to recover
his own safety from you, nothing more. For you, by your
lust and wickedness, have removed him entirely from his coun
try, in which he flourished as a leading man, illustrious for his
many virtues and distinguished services. This man Dexio,
whom you see now present, demands of you, not the public
treasures of which you stripped Tyndaris, nor the wealth of
which you robbed him as a private individual, but, wretched
that he is, he demands of you his most virtuous, his most
innocent, his only son. He does not want to carry back home
a sum of money obtained from you as damages, but he seeks
out of your calamity some consolation for the ashes and
bones of his son. This other man here, the aged Eubulida,
has not, at the close of life, undertaken such fatigue and so
long a journey, to recover any of his property, but to see you
condemned with the same eyes that beheld the bleeding neck
of his own son. If it had not been for Lucius Metellus, 0
judges, the mothers of those men, their wives and sisters, were
on their way hither ; and one of them, when I arrived at
Heraclea late at night, came to meet me with all the matrons
of that city, and with many torches ; and so, styling me her
saviour, calling you her executioner, uttering in an imploring
manner the name of her son, she fell down, wretched as she
was, at my feet, as if I were able to raise her son from the
shades below. In the other cities also the aged mothers, and
even the little children of those miserable men did the same
thing ; while the helpless age of each class appeared especially
to stand in need of my labour and diligence, of your good
faith and pity. Therefore, 0 judges, this complaint was
brought to me by Sicily most especially and beyond all other
complaints. I have undertaken this task, induced by the tears
of others, not by any desire of my own for glory ; in order
that false condemnation, and imprisonment, and chains, and
axes, and the torture of our allies, and the execution of
innocent men, and last of all, that the bodies of the lifeless
dead, and the agony of living parents and relations, may not
be a source of profit to our magistrates. If, by that man's
VI. AGAIXST VEERES. 521
condemnation, obtained through your good faith and strict
justice, 0 judges, I remove this fear from Sicily, I shall
think enough has been done in discharge of my duty, and
enough to satisfy their wishes who have entreated this assist
ance from me.
L. Wherefore, if by any chance you find one who attempts
to defend him from this accusation in the matter of the fleet,
let him defend him thus ; let him leave out those common
topics which have nothing to do with the business — that I am
attributing to him blame which belongs to fortune ; that I
am imputing to him disaster as a crime ; that I am accusing
him of the loss of a fleet, when, in the uncertain risks of war
which are common to both sides, many gallant men have
often met with disasters both by land and sea. I am im
puting to you nothing in which fortune was concerned ; you
have no pretext for bringing up the disasters of others ; you
have nothing to do with collecting instances of the misfortunes
of many others. I say the ships were dismantled ; I say the
rowers and sailors were discharged ; I say the rest had been
living on the roots of wild palms ; that a Sicilian was ap
pointed to command a fleet of the Roman people ; a Syracu-
san to command our allies arid friends ; I say that, all that
time, and for many preceding days, you were spending your
time in drunken revels on the sea-shore with your concubines;
and I produce my informants and witnesses, who prove all
these charges. Do 1 seem to be insulting you in your cala
mity ; to be cutting you off from your legitimate excuse of
blaming fortune 1 Do I appear to be attacking and reproach
ing you for the ordinary chances of war ? Although the men
who are indeed accustomed to object to the results of fortune
being made a charge against them, are those who have com
mitted themselves to her, and have encountered her perils
and vicissitudes. But in that disaster of yours, fortune had
no share at all. For men are accustomed to try the fortune of
war, and to encounter danger in battles, not in banquets.
But in that disaster of yours we cannot say that Mars had
any share ; we may say that Venus had. But if it is not
right that the disasters of fortune should be imputed to' you,
why did you not allow her some weight in furnishing excuses
and defence for those innocent men ? You must also deprive
yourself of the argument, that you are now accused and held
522 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
up to odium, by me, for having punished and executed men
according to the custom of our ancestors. My accusation
does not turn on any one's punishment. I do not say that
no one ought to have been put to death ; T do not say that
all fear is to be removed from military service, severity from
command, or punishment , from guilt. I confess that there
are many precedents for severe and terrible punishments
inflicted not only on our allies, but even on our citizens and
soldiers.
LI. You may therefore omit all such topics as these. I
prove that the fault was not in the naval captains, but in
you. I accuse you of having discharged the soldiers and
rowers for a bribe. The rest of the naval captains say the
same. The confederate city of the Netians bears public testi
mony to the truth of this charge. The cities of Herbita, of
Amestras, of Enna, of Agyrium, of Tyndaris, and the lonians,
all give their public testimony to the same effect. Last of all,
your own witness, your own commander, your own host,
Cleomenes, says this, — that he had landed on the coast in order
to collect soldiers from Pachynum, where there was a garrison
of troops, in order to put them on board the fleet ; which he
certainly would not have done if the ships had had their
complement. For the system of ships when fully equipped
and fully manned is such that you have no room, I will not
say for many more, but for even one single man more. I
say, moreover, that those very sailors who were left, were
worn out and disabled by famine, and by a want of every
necessary. I say, that either all were free from blame, or
that if blame must be attributable to some one, the greatest
blame must be due to him. who had the best ship, the largest
crew, and the chief command ; or, that if all were to blame,
Cleomenes ought not to have been a spectator of the death
and torture of those men. I say, besides, that in those execu
tions, to allow of that traffic in tears, of that bargaining for
an effective wound and a deadly blow, of that bargaining for
the funeral and sepulture of the victims, was impiety. Where
fore, if you will make me any answer at all, say this, — that
the fleet was properly equipped and fully manned ; that no
fighting-men were absent, that no bench was without its
rower ; that ample corn was supplied to the rowers ; that the
naval captains are liars ; that all those honourable cities are
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 523
liars ; that all Sicily is a liar ; — that you were betrayed by
Cleornenes, when he said that he had landed on the coast to
get soldiers from Pachynum ; that it was courage, and not
troops that he needed ; — that Cleomenes, while fighting most
gallantly, was abandoned and deserted by these men, and that
no money was paid to any one for leave to bury the dead. —
If you say this, you shall be convicted of falsehood ; if you
say anything else, you will not be refuting what has been
stated by me.
LII. Here will you dare to say also, " Among my judges
that one is my intimate friend, that one is a friend of my
father?" Is it not the case that the more acquainted or con
nected with you any one is, the more he is ashamed at the
charges brought against you ? He is your father's friend —
If your father himself were your judge, what, in the name of
the immortal gods, could you do when he said this to you ? —
" You, being in a province as praetor of the Eoman people,
when you had to carry on a naval war, three years excused
the Mamertines from supplying the ship, which by treaty
they were bound to supply ; by those same Mamertines a
transport of the largest size was built for you at the public
expense ; you exacted money from the cities on the pretext
of the fleet ; you discharged the rowers for a bribe ; when a
pirate vessel had been taken by your quaestor, and by your
lieutenant, you removed the captain of the pirates from every
one's sight ; you ventured to put to death men who were
called Roman citizens, who were recognised as such by many ;
you dared to take to your own house pirates, and to bring the
captain of the pirates into the court of justice from your own
house. You, in that splendid province, in the sight of our
most faithful allies, and of most honourable Roman citizens,
lay for many days together on the sea-shore in revelry and
debauchery, and that at a time of the greatest alarm and
danger to the province. All those days no one could find
you at your own house, no one could see you in the forum ;
you entertained the mothers of families of our allies and
friends at those banquets ; among women of that sort you
placed your youthful son, my grandson, in order that his
father's life might furnish examples of iniquity to a time of
life which is particularly unsteady and open to temptation ;
you, while praetor in your province, were seen in a tunic and
524 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
purple cloak ; you, to gratify your passion and lust, took
away the command of the fleet from a lieutenant of the
Roman people, and gave it to a Syracusan • your soldiers in
the province of Sicily were in want of provisions and of corn ;
owing to your luxury and avarice, a fleet belonging to the
Roman people was taken and burnt by pirates ; in your
prsetorship, for the first time since Syracuse was a city, did
pirates sail about in that harbour, which no enemy had ever
entered; moreover, you did not seek to cover these numerous
and terrible disgraces of yours by any concealment on your
part, nor did you seek to make men forget them by keeping
silence respecting them, but you even without any cause tore
the captains of the ships from the embrace of their parents,
who were your own friends and connexions, and hurried them
to death and torture ; nor, in witnessing the grief and tears of
those parents, did any recollection of my name soften your
heart ; the blood of innocent men was not only a pleasure,
but also a profit to you."
LIII. If your own father were to say this to you, could you
entreat pardon from him? could you dare to beg even him to
forgive you? Enough has been done by me, 0 judges, to
satisfy the Sicilians, enough to discharge my duty and obliga
tion to them, enough to acquit me of my promise and of the
labour which I have undertaken. The remainder of the
accusation, 0 judges, is one which I have not received from
any one, but which is, if I may so say, innate in me ; it is one
which has not been brought to me, but which is deeply fixed
and implanted in all my feelings ; it is one which concerns,
not the safety of the allies, but the life and existence of Roman
citizens, that is to say, of every one of us. And in urging this,
do not, 0 judges, expect to hear any arguments from me, as
if the matter were doubtful. Everything which I am going
to say about the punishment of Roman citizens, will be so
evident and notorious, that I could produce all Sicily as wit
nesses to prove it. For some insanity, the frequent companion
of wickedness and audacity, urged on that man's uuresti-ained
ferocity of disposition and inhuman nature to such frenzy,
that he never hesitated, openly, in the presence of the whole
body of citizens and settlers, to employ against Roman citizens
those punishments which have been instituted only for slaves
convicted of crime. Why need I tell you how many men he
VI. AGAINST VEBRES. 525
has scourged ? I will only say that, most briefly, 0 judges, while
that man was prsetor there was no discrimination whatever irt
the infliction of that sort of punishment; and, accordingly, the
hands of the lictor were habitually laid on the persons of the
Roman citizens, even without any actual order from Verres.
LIV. Can you deny this, 0 Verres, that in the forum, at
Lilybaeum, in the presence of a numerous body of inhabi
tants, Gains Servilius, a Roman citizen, an old trader of the
body of settlers at Panormus, was beaten to the ground by
rods and sourges before your tribunal, before your very feet ?
Dare first to deny this, if you can. No one was at Lilybaeum
who did not see it. No one was in Sicily who did not hear of
it. I assert that a Roman citizen fell down before your eyes,
exhausted by the scourging of your lictors. For what reason ]
0 ye immortal gods ! — though in asking that I am doing
injury to the common cause of all the citizens, and to the
privilege of citizenship, for I am asking what reason there was
in the case of Servilius for this treatment, as if there could be
any reason for its being legally inflicted on any Roman citizen.
Pardon me this one error, 0 judges, for I will not in the rest
of the cases ask for any reason. He had spoken rather freely
of the dishonesty and worthlessness of Verres. And as soon as
he was informed of this, he orders the man to Lilybeeum to
give security in a prosecution instituted against him by one
of the slaves of Verres. He gives security. He comes to
Lilybseum. Verres begins to compel him, though no one pro
ceeded with any action against him, though no one made any
claim on him, to be bound over in the sum of two thousand
sesterces, to appear to a charge brought against him by his
own lictor, in the formula, — " If he had made any profit by
robbery." — He says that he will appoint judges out of his own
retinue. Servilius demurs, and entreats that he may not be
proceeded against by a capital prosecution before unjust
judges, and where there is no prosecutor. While he is urging
this with a loud voice, six of the most vigorous lictors sur
round him, men in full practice in beating and scourging
men ; they beat him most furiously with rods ; then the
lictor who was nearest to him, the man whom I have already
often mentioned, Sextus, turning his stick round, began to
beat the wretched man violently on the eyes. Therefore,
when blood had filled his mouth and eyes, he fell down, and
526 CICERO 8 ORATIONS.
they, nevertheless, continued to beat him on the sides while
lying on the ground, till he said at last he would give security.
He, having been treated in this manner, was taken away from
the place as dead, and, in a short time afterwards, he died.
But that devoted servant of Venus, that man so rich in wit
and politeness, erected a silver Cupid out of his property in
the temple of Venus. And in this way he misused the
fortunes of men to fulfil the nightly vows made by him for
the accomplishment of his desires.
LV. For why should I speak separately of, all the other
punishments inflicted on Roman citizens, rather than gene
rally, and in the lump? That prison which was built at
Syracuse, by that most cruel tyrant Dionysius, which is called
the stone-quarries, was, iinder his government, the home of
Roman citizens. As any one of them offended his eyes or his
mind, he was instantly thrown into the stone-quarries. I see
that this appears a scandalous thing to you, 0 judges ; and
I had observed that, at the former pleading, when the wit
nesses stated these things; for you thought that the privi
leges oMreedom ought to be maintained, not only here, where
there are tribunes of the people, where there are other magis
trates, where there is a forim with many courts of justice,
where there is the authority of the senate, where there is the
opinion of the Roman people to hold a man in check, where
the Roman people itself is present in great numbers ; but, in
whatever country or nation the privileges of Roman citizens
are violated, you, 0 judges, decide that that violation concerns
the common cause of freedom, and of your dignity. Did you,
0 Verres, dare to confine such a number of Roman citizens
in a prison built for foreigners, for wicked men, for pirates,
and for enemies 1 Did no thoughts of this tribunal, or of the
public assembly, or of this numerous multitude which I see
around me, and which is now regarding you with a most
hostile and inimical disposition, occur to your mind 1 Did
not the dignity of?the Roman people, though absent, did not
the appearance of such a concourse as this ever present itself
to your eyes or to your thoughts 1 Did you never think that
you should have to return home to the sight of these men,
that you should have to come into the forum of the Roman
people, that you should have to submit yourself to the power
of the laws and courts of justice ?
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 527
LVI. But what, 0 Verres, was that passion of yours for
practising cruelty 1 what was your reason for undertaking so
many wicked actions 1 It was nothing. 0 judges, except a
new and unprecedented system of plundering. For like those
men whose histories we have learnt from the poets, who are
said to have occupied some bays on the sea-coast, or some
promontories, or some precipitous rocks, in order to be able
to murder those who had been driven to such places in their
vessels, this man also looked down as an enemy over every
sea, from every part of Sicily. Every ship that came from
Asia, from Syria, from Tyre, from Alexandria, was immediately
seized by informers and guards that he could rely upon ; their
crews were all thrown into the stone-quarries ; their freights
and merchandise carried up into the praetor's house. After
a long interval there was seen to range through Sicily, not
another Dionysius, not another Phalaris, (for their island has
at one time or another produced many inhuman tyrants,) but
a new sort of monster, endowed with all the ancient savage
barbarity which is said to have formerly existed in those same
districts ; for I do not think that either Scylla or Charybdis
was such an enemy to sailors, as that man has been in the
same waters. And in one respect he is far more to be dreaded
than they, because he is girdled with more numerous and
more powerful hounds than they were. He is a second
Cyclops, far more savage than the first ; for Verres had pos
session of the whole island ; Polyphemus is said to have
occupied only ^Etna and that part of Sicily. But what pre
text was alleged at the time by that man for this outrageous
cruelty ? The same which is now going to be stated in his
defence. He used to say whenever any one came to Sicily a
little better off than usual, that they were soldiers of Sertorius,
and that they were flying from Dianium.1 They brought him
presents to gain his protection from danger ; some brought
him Tyrian purple, others brought frankincense, perfumes, and
linen robes ; others gave jewels and pearls; some offered great
bribes and Asiatic slaves, so that it was seen by their very
goods from what place they came. They were not aware that
those very things which they thought that they were employ
ing as aids to ensure their safety, were the causes of their
1 Dianium was a town in Spain which had been occupied by
Sertorius.
528 CICEEOS ORATIONS.
danger. For he would say that they had acquired those
things by partnership with pirates, he would order the men
themselves to be led away to the stone-quarries, he would
see that their ships and their freights were diligently taken
care of.
LVII. When by these practices his prison had become full
of merchants, then those scenes took place which you have
heard related by Lucius Suetius, a Roman knight, and a most
virtuous man, and by others. The necks of Roman citizens
were broken in a most infamous manner in the prison; so that
very expression and form of entreaty, " I am a Roman citizen,"
which has often brought to many, in the most distant coun
tries, succour and assistance, even among the barbarians, only
brought to these men a more bitter death and a more imme
diate execution. What is this, 0 Verres 1 What reply are
you thinking of making to this 1 That I am telling lies 1 that
I am inventing things 1 that I am exaggerating this accusa
tion 1 Will you dare to say any one of these things to those
men who are defending you 1 Give me, I pray you, the
documents of the Syracusans taken from his own bosom, which,
methinks, were drawn up according to his will ; give me the
register of the prison, which is most carefully made up, stat
ing in what day each individual was committed to prison,
when he died, how he was executed.
\The documents of the Syracusans are read.]
You see that Roman citizens were thrown in crowds into the
stone quarries ; you see a multitude of your fellow-citizens
heaped together in a most unworthy place. Look now for all
the traces of their departure from that place, which are to be
seen. There are none. Are they all dead of disease ? If he
were able to urge this in his defence, still such a defence
would find credit with no one. But there is a word written
in those documents, which that ignorant and profligate man
never noticed, and would not have understood if he had.
^ESucaiwOriarav, it says — that is, according to the Sicilian
language, they were punished and put to death.
LVIII. If any king, if any city among foreign nations, if
any nation had done anything of this sort to a Roman citizen,
should we not avenge that act by a public resolution 1 should
we not prosecute our revenge by war ? Could we leave such
injury and insult offered the Roman name unavenged and
VI. AGAINST YBBBES. 529
unpunished 1 How many wars, and what serious ones do you
think that our ancestors undertook, because Roman citizens
were said to have been ill-treated, or Roman vessels detained,
or Roman merchants plundered 1 But I am not complaining
that men have been detained ; I think one might endure
their having been plundered; I am impeaching Verres because
after their ships, their slaves, and their merchandise had been
taken from them, the merchants themselves were thrown into
prison — because Roman citizens. were imprisoned and executed.
If I were saying this among Scythians, not before such a mul
titude of Roman citizens, not before the most select senators
of the city, not in the forum of the Roman people, — if I were
relating such numerous and bitter punishments inflicted on
Roman citizens, I should move the pity of even those bar
barous men. For so great is the dignity of this empire, so
great is the honour in which the Roman name is held among
all nations, that the exercise of such cruelty towards our citi
zens seems to be permitted to no one. Can I think that there
is any safety or any refuge for you, when I see you hemmed
in by the severity of the judges, and entangled as it were in
the meshes of a net by the concourse of the Roman people
here present ? If, indeed, (though I have no idea that that is
possible,) you were to escape from these toils, and effect your
escape by any way or any method, you will then fall into
that still greater net, in which you must be caught and de
stroyed by me from the elevation in which I stand. For even
if I were to grant to him all that he urges in his defence, yet
that very defence must turn out not less injurious to him,
than my true accusation.
For what does he urge in his defence ? He says that he
arrested men flying from Spain, and put them to death. Who
gave you leave to do so f By what right did you do so ?
Who else did the same thing ? How was it lawful for you
to do so ? We see the forum and the porticoes full of those
men, and we are contented to see them there. For the end
of civil dissensions, and of the (shall I say) insanity, or. des
tiny, or calamity in which they take their rise, is not so
grievous as to make it unlawful for us to preserve the rest
of our citizens in safety. That Verres there, that ancient
betrayer of his consul, that transferrer l of the qusestorship,
1 See the first book of this second pleading against Yerres, c. 37.
M M
530 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
that embezzler of the public money, has taken upon himself
so much authority in the republic, that he would have in
flicted a bitter and cruel death on all those men whom the
senate, and the Roman people, and the magistrates allowed to
remain in the forum, in the exercise of their rights as voters,
in the city and in the republic, if fortune had brought them
to any part of Sicily. After Perperna was slain, many of the
number of Sertorius's soldiers fled to Cnseus Pompeius, that
most illustrious and gallant man. Was there one of them
whom he did not preserve safe and unhurt with the greatest
kindness ? was there one suppliant citizen to whom that invin
cible right hand was not stretched out as a pledge of his faith,
and as a sure token of safety ? Was it then so ? Was death
and torture appointed by you, who had never done one im
portant service to the republic, for those who found a har
bour of refuge in that man against whom they had borne
arms ? See what an admirable defence you have imagined
for yourself.
LIX. I had rather, I had rather in truth, that the truth of
this defence of yours were proved to these judges and to the
Roman people, than the truth of my accusation. I had rather,
I say, that you were thought a foe and an enemy to that
class of men than to merchants and seafaring men. For the
accusation I bring against you impeaches you of excessive
avarice .: the defence that you make for yourself accuses you
of a sort of frenzy, of savage ferocity, of unheard-of cruelty,
and of almost a new proscription. But I may not avail
myself of such an advantage as that, 0 judges ; I may not ;
for all Puteoli is here ; merchants in crowds have come to
this trial, wealthy and honourable men, who will tell you,
some that their partners, some that their freedmen were
plundered by that man, were thrown into prison, that some
were privately murdered in prison, some publicly executed.
See now how impartially I will behave to you. When
I produce Publius Granius as a witness to state that his
freedmen were publicly executed by you, to demand back
his ship and his merchandise from you, refute him if you
can ; I will abandon my own witness and will take your
part • I will assist you, I say ; prove that those men have
been with Sertorius, and that, when flying from Dianium,
they were driven to Sicily. There is nothing which I
•would rather have you prove. For no crime can be ima-
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 531
gined or produced against you which is worthy of a greater
punishment. I will call back the Roman knight, Lucius
Flavins, if you wish ; since at the previous pleading, being
influenced, as your advocates are in the habit of saying, by
some unusual prudence, but, (as all men are aware,) being
overpowered by your own conscience, and by the authority
of my witnesses, you did not put a question to any single
witness. Let Flavius be asked, if you like, who Lucius Heren-
nius was, the man who, he says, was a money-changer at
Leptis ; who, though he had more than a hundred Roman
citizens in the body of settlers at Syracuse, who not only
knew him, but defended him with their tears and with en
treaties to you, was still publicly executed by you in the
sight of all the Syracusans. I am very willing that this
witness of mine should also be refuted, and that it should
be demonstrated and proved by you that that Hereunius had
been one of Sertorius's soldiers.
LX. What shall we say of that multitude of those men.
who were produced with veiled heads among the pirates and
prisoners in order to be executed? What was that new
diligence of yours, and on what account was it put in opera
tion ? Did the loud outcries of Lucius Flavius and the rest
about Lucius Herennius influence you ? Had the excessive
influence of Marcus Annius, a most influential and most
honourable man, made you a little more careful and more
fearful 1 who lately stated in his evidence that it was not
some stranger, no one knows who, nor any foreigner, but
a Roman citizen who was well known to the whole body
of inhabitants, who had been born at Syracuse, who had been
publicly executed by you. After this loud statement of
theirs, — after this had become known by the common con-
vei'sation and common complaints of all men, he began to be,
I will not say more merciful in his punishments, but more
careful. He established the rule of bringing out Roman.
citizens for punishment with their heads muffled up, whom,
however, he put to death in the sight of all men, because the
citizens (as we have said before) were calculating the number
of pirates with too much accuracy. Was this the condition
that was established for the Roman people while you were
prsetor? were these the hopes under which they were to
transact their business 1 was this the danger in which their
M M 2
532 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
lives and condition as freemen were placed ? are there not
risks enough at the hands of fortune to be encountered of
necessity by merchants, unless they are threatened also with
these terrors by our magistrates, and in our provinces 1 "Was
this the state to which it was decent to reduce that suburban
and loyal province of Sicily, full of most valued allies, and of
most honourable Roman citizens, which has at all times
received with the greatest willingness all Roman citizens
within its territories, that those who were sailing from the
most distant parts of Syria or Egypt, who had been held in
some honour, even among barbarians, on account of their
name as Roman citizens, who had escaped from the ambushes
of pirates, from the dangers of tempests, should be publicly
executed in Sicily when they thought that they had now
reached their home 1
LXI. For why should I speak of Publius Gavius, a citizen
of the municipality of Cosa, 0 judges 1 or with what vigour
of language, with what gravity of expression, with what grief
of mind shall I mention him ? But, indeed, that indignation
fails me. I must take more care than usual that what I am
going to say be worthy of my subject, — worthy of the in
dignation which I feel. For the charge is of such a nature,
that when I was first informed of it I thought I should
not avail myself of it. For although I knew that it was
entirely true, still I thought that it would not appear credible.
Being compelled by the tears of all the Roman citizens who
are living as traders in Sicily, being influenced by the testi
monies of the men of Valentia, most honourable men, and
by those of all the Rhegians, and of many Roman knights
who happened at that time to be at Messana, I produced
at the previous pleading only just that amount of evidence
which might prevent the matter from appearing doubtful to
any one. What shall I do now ? When I have been speaking
for so many hours of one class of offences, and of that man's
nefarious cruelty, — when I have now expended nearly all my
treasures of words of such a sort as are worthy of that man's
wickedness on other matters, and have omitted to take
precautions to keep your attention on the stretch by diversi
fying my accusations, how am I to deal with an afiair of the
importance that this is ? There is, I think, but one method,
but one line open to me. I will place the matter plainly
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 533
before you, -which is of itself of such importance that there
is no need of my eloquence — and eloquence, indeed, I have
none, but there is no need of any one's eloquence to excite
your feelings. This Gavins whom I am speaking of, a citizen
of Cosa, when he (among that vast number of Roman citizens
who had been treated in the same way) had been thrown by
Verres into prison, and somehow or other had escaped secretly
out of the stone-quarries, and had come to Messana, being
now almost within sight of Italy and of the walls of Rhegium,
and being revived, after that fear of death and that darkness,
by the light, as it were, of liberty and of the fragrance of the
laws, began to talk at Messana, and to complain that he,
a Roman citizen, had been thrown into prison. He said that
he was now going straight to Rome, and that he would meet
Verres on his arrival there.
LXIL The miserable man was not aware that it made
no difference whether he said this at Messana, or before the
man's face in his own praetorian palace. For, as I have shown
3^ou before, that man had selected this city as the assistant in
his crimes, the receiver of his thefts, the partner in all his
wickedness. Accordingly, Gavius is at once brought before
the Mamertine magistrates; and, as it happened, Verres came
on that very day to Messana. The matter is brought before
him. He is told that the man was a Roman citizen, who was
complaining that at Syracuse he had been confined in the
stone-quarries, and who, when he was actually embarking
on board ship, and uttering violent threats against Verres,
had been brought back by them, and reserved in order that
he himself might decide what should be done with him. He
thanks the men and praises their good-will and diligence
in his behalf. He himself, inflamed with wickedness and
, frenzy, comes into the forum. His eyes glared ; cruelty was
visible in his whole countenance. All men waited to see
what steps he was going to take, — what he was going to
do ; when all of a sudden he orders the man to be seized, and
to be stripped and bound in the middle of the forum, and the
rods to be got ready. The miserable man cried out that
he was a Roman citizen, a citizen, also, of the municipal
town of Cosa, — that he had served with Lucius Pretius, a
most illustrious Roman knight, who was living as a trader at
Panormus, and from whom Verres might know that he was
534 CICERO'S OKATIONS.
speaking the truth. Then Verres says that he has ascer
tained that he had been sent into Sicily by the leaders of the
runaway slaves, in order to act as a spy ; a matter as to
which there was no witness, no trace, nor even the slightest
suspicion in the mind of any one. Then, he orders the man
to be most violently scourged on all sides. In the middle of
the forum of Messana a Eoman citizen, 0 judges, was beaten,
with rods ; while in the mean time no groan was heard, no
other expression was heard from that wretched man, amid all
his pain, and between the sound of the blows, except these
words, " I am a citizen of Rome." He fancied that by this
one statement of his citizenship he could ward off all blows,
and remove all torture from his person. He not only did
not succeed in averting by his entreaties the violence of the
rods, but as he kept on repeating his entreaties and the
assertion of his citizenship, a cross — a cross, I say — was got
ready for that miserable man, who had never witnessed such
a stretch of power.
LXIII. 0 the sweet name of liberty ! 0 the admirable
privileges of our citizenship! 0 Porcian law! 0 Sempronian
laws ! 0 power of the tribunes, bitterly regretted by, and
at last restored to the Roman people ! Have all our rights
fallen so far, that in a province of the Roman people, — in a
town of our confederate allies, — a Roman citizen should be
bound in the forum, and beaten with rods by a man who
only had the fasces and the axes through the kindness of the
Roman people ? What shall I say ? When fire, and red-hot
plates, and other instruments of torture were employed ? If
the bitter entreaties and the miserable cries of that man had
110 power to restrain you, were you not moved even by the
weeping and loud groans of the Roman citizens who were
present at that time ? Did you dare to drag any one to the
cross who said that he was a Roman citizen? I was unwilling,
0 judges, to press this point so strongly at the former plead
ing ; I was unwilling to do so. For you saw how the feelings
of the multitude were excited against him with indignation,
and hatred, and fear of their common danger. I, at that
time, fixed a limit to my oration, and checked the eagerness
of Caius Numitorius, a Roman knight, a man of the highest
character, one of my witnesses. And I rejoiced that Glabrio
had acted (and he had acted most wisely) as he did in dis-
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 533
missing that witness immediately, in the middle of the dis
cussion. In fact he was afraid that the Roman people might
seem to have inflicted that punishment on Verres by
tumultuary violence, which he was anxious he should only
suffer according to the laws and by your judicial sentence.
Now since it is made clear beyond a doubt to every one, in
what state your case is, and what will become of you, I will
deal thus with you : I will prove that that Gavius whom you
all of a sudden assert to have been a spy, had been confined
by you in the stone-quarries at Syracuse ; and I will prove
that, not only by the registers of the Syracusans, — lest you
should be able to say that, because there is a man named
Gavius mentioned in those documents, I have invented this
charge, and picked out this name so as to be able to say that
this is the man, — but in accordance with your own choice
I will produce witnesses, who will state that that identical
man was thrown by you into the stone-quarries at Syracuse.
I will produce, also, citizens of Cosa, his fellow-citizens and
relations, who shall teach you, though it is too late, and who
shall also teach the judges, (for it is not too late for them
to know them,) that that Publius Gavius whom you crucified
was a Roman citizen, and a citizen of the municipality of
Cosa, not a spy of runaway slaves.
LXIV. When I have made all these points, which I under
take to prove, abundantly plain to your most intimate friends,
then I will also turn my attention to that which is granted
me by you. I will say that I am content with that. For
what — what, I say, did you yourself lately say, when in an
agitated state you escaped from the outcry and violence of the
Roman people 1 Why, that he had only cried out that he was
a Roman citizen because he was seeking some respite, but that
he was a spy. My witnesses are unimpeachable. For what else
does Caius Numitorius say 1 what else do Marcus and Publius
Cottius say, most noble men of the district of Tauromeniurn?
what else does Marcus Lucceius say, who had a great business
as a money-changer at Rhegium 1 what else do all the others
say1? For as yet witnesses have only been produced by me
of this class, not men who say that they were acquainted with
Gavius, but men who say that they saw him at the time that
he was being dragged to the cross, while crying out that he
was a Roman citizen. And you, 0 Verres, say the same
536 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
thing. You confess that he did cry out that he was a Roman
citizen ; but that the name of citizenship did not avail with
you even so much as to cause the least hesitation in your
mind, or even any brief respite from a most cruel and igno
minious punishment. This is the point I press, this is what
I dwell upon, 0 judges; with this single fact I am content.
I give up, I am indifferent to all the rest. By his own con
fession he must be entangled and destroyed. You did not
know who he was ; you suspected that he was a spy. I do
not ask you what were your grounds for that suspicion, I im
peach you by your own words. He said that he was a Roman
citizen. If you, 0 Verres, being taken among the Persians
or in the remotest parts of India, were being led to execution,
what else would you cry out but that you were a Roman citi
zen 1 And if that name of your city, honoured and renowned
as it is among all men, would have availed you, a stranger
among strangers, among barbarians, among men placed in the
most remote and distant corners of the earth, ought not he,
whoever he was, whom you were hurrying to the cross, who
was a stranger to you, to have been able, when he said that
he was a Roman citizen, to obtain from you, the praetor, if not
an escape, at least a respite from death by his mention of and
claims to citizenship 1
LXV. Men of no importance, born in an obscure rank, go
to sea ; they go to places which they have never seen before ;
where they can neither be known to the men among whom
they have arrived, nor always find people to vouch for them.
But still, owing to this confidence in the mere fact of their
citizenship, they think that they shall be safe, not only among
our own magistrates, who are restrained by fear of the laws
and of public opinion, nor among our fellow-citizens only, who
are united with them by community of language, of rights,
and of many other things ; but wherever they come they
think that this will be a protection to them. Take away this
hope, take away this protection from Roman citizens, establish
the fact that there is no assistance to be found in the words
" I am a Roman citizen ; " that a prsetor, or any other officer,
may with impunity order any punishment he pleases to bo
inflicted on a man who says that he is a Roman citizen, though
no one knows that it is not true ; and at one blow, by admit
ting that defence, you cut off from the Roman citizens all the
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 537
provinces, all the kingdoms, all free cities, and indeed the
whole world, which has hitherto been open most especially to
our countrymen. But what shall be said if he named Lucius
Pretius, a Roman knight, who was at that time living in Sicily
as a trader, as a man who would vouch for him ? Was it a
very great undertaking to send letters to Panormus 1 to keep
the man ? to detain him in prison, confined in the custody of
your dear friends the Mamertines, till Pretius came from
Panormus ? Did he know the man ? Then you might remit
some part of the extreme punishment. Did he not know him ?
Then, if you thought fit, you might establish this law for all
people, that whoever was not known to you, and could not
produce a rich man to vouch for him, even though he were a
Roman citizen, was still to be crucified.
LXVI. But why need I say more about Gavius 1 as if you
were hostile to Gavius, and not rather an enemy to the name
and class of citizens, and to all their rights. You were not, I
say, an enemy to the individual, but to the common cause of
liberty. For what was your object in ordering the Mamer
tines, when, according to their regular custom and usage, they
had erected the cross behind the city in the Pompeian road,
to place it where it looked towards the strait ; and in adding,
what you can by no means deny, what you said openly in the
hearing of every one, that you chose that place in order that
the man who said that he was a Roman citizen, might be
able from his cross to behold Italy and to look towards his
own home 1 And accordingly, 0 judges, that cross, for the
first time since the foundation of Messana, was erected in
that place. A spot commanding a view of Italy was picked
out by that man, for the express purpose that the wretched
man who was dying in agony and torture might see that the
rights of liberty and of slavery were only separated by a very
narrow strait, and that Italy might behold her son murdered
by the most miserable and most painful punishment appro
priate to slaves alone.
It is a crime to bind a Roman citizen ; to scourge him is
a wickedness ; to put him to death is almost parricide. What
shall I say of crucifying him 1 So guilty an action cannot
by any possibility be adequately expressed by any name bad
enough for it. Yet with all this that man was not content.
" Let him behold his country," said he ; " let him die within
538 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
sight of laws and liberty." It was not Gavius, it was not
one individual, I know not whom, — it was not one Roman
citizen, — it was the common cause of freedom and citizen
ship that you exposed to that torture and nailed on that
cross. But now consider the audacity of the man. Do not
you think that he was indignant that he could not erect
that cross for Roman citizens in the forum, in the comitium,
in the very rostra1? For the place in his province which
was the most like those places in celebrity, and the nearest
to them in point of distance, he did select. He chose that
monument of his wickedness and audacity to be in the sight
of Italy, in the very vestibule of Sicily, within sight of all
passers-by as they sailed to and fro.
LXVII. If I were to choose to make these complaints and
to vitter these lamentations, not to Roman citizens, not to any
friends of our city, not to men who had heard of the name
of the Roman people, — if I uttered them not to men, but to
beasts, — or even, to go further, if I uttered them in some
most desolate wilderness to the stones and rocks, still all
things, mute and inanimate as they might be, would be moved
by such excessive, by such scandalous atrocity of conduct.
But now, when I am speaking before senators of the Roman
people, the authors of the laws, of the courts of justice, and
of all right, I ought not to fear that that man will not be
judged to be the only Roman citizen deserving of that cross
of his, and that all others will not be judged most undeserv
ing of such a danger. A little while ago, 0 judges, we did
not restrain our tears at the miserable and most unworthy
death of the naval captains ; and it was right for us to be
moved at the misery of our innocent allies ; what now ought
we to do when the lives of our relations are concerned ? For
the blood of all Roman citizens ought to be accounted kindred
blood ; since the consideration of the common safety, and
truth requires it. All the Roman citizens in this place, both
those who are present, and those who are absent in distant
lands, require your severity, implore the aid of your good
faith, look anxiously for your assistance. They think that all
their privileges, all their advantages, all their defences, in short
their whole liberty, depends on your sentence. From me,
although they have already had aid enough, still, if the affair
should turn out ill, they will perhaps have more than they
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 539
venture to ask for. For even though any violence should
snatch that man from your severity, which I do not fear, 0
judges, nor do I think it by any means possible ; still, if my
expectations should in this deceive me, the Sicilians will
complain that their cause is lost, and they will be as indignant
as I shall myself; yet the Roman people, in a short time,
since it has given me the power of pleading before them,
shall through my exertions recover its rights by its own votes
before the beginning of February. And if you have any
anxiety, 0 judges, for my honour and for my renown, it is
not unfavourable for my interests, that that man, having been,
saved from me at this trial, should be reserved for that deci
sion of the Roman people. The cause is a splendid one, one
easily to be proved by me, very acceptable and agreeable to
the Roman people. Lastly, if I seem here to have wished
to rise at the expense of that one man, which I have not
wished, — if he should be acquitted, (a thing which cannot
happen without the wickedness of many men,) I shall be
enabled to rise at the expense of many.
LXVIII. But in truth, for your sake, 0 judges, and for
the sake of the republic, I should grieve that such a crime
was committed by this select bench of judges. I should
grieve that those judges, whom I have myself approved of
and joined in selecting, should walk about in this city branded
with such disgrace by that man being acquitted, as to seem
smeared not with wax1 but with mud. Wherefore, from this
place I warn you also, 0 Hortensius, if there is any room for
giving a warning, to take care again and again, and to con
sider what you are doing, and whither you are proceeding;
what man it is whom you are defending, and by what means
you are doing so. Nor in this manner do I seek at all to
limit you, so as to prevent your contending against me with
all your genius, and all your ability in speaking. As to other
things, if you think that you can secretly manage, out of
court, some of the things which belong to this judicial trial;
if you think that you can effect anything by artifice, by cun
ning, by influence, by your own popularity, by that man's
wealth ; then I am strongly of opinion you had better aban
don that idea. And I warn you rather to put down, I warn
1 This refers to the tablets on which the judges signified their deci
sion, which, as has been said before, were covered with wax.
540 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
you not to suffer to proceed any further the attempts -which
have already been commenced by that man, but which have
been thoroughly detected by, and are thoroughly known to
me. It will be at a great risk to yourself that any error is
committed in this trial ; at a greater risk than you think.
For as for your thinking yourself now relieved from all fear
for your reputation, and at the summit of all honour as
consul elect, believe me, it is no less laborious a task to
preserve those honours and kindnesses, conferred on you by
the Roman people, than to acquire them. This city has borne
as long as it could, as long as there was no help for it, that
kingly sort of sway of yours which you have exercised in the
courts of justice, and in every part of the republic. It has
borne it, I say. But on the day when the tribunes of the
people were restored to the Roman people, all those privileges
(if you are not yourself already aware of it) were taken away
from you. At this very time the eyes of all men are directed
on each individual among us, to see with what good faith I
prosecute him, with what scrupulous justice these men judge
him, in what manner you defend him. And in the case of
all of us, if any one of us turns aside ever so little from the
right path, there will follow, not that silent opinion of men
which you were formerly accustomed to despise, but a severe
and fearless judgment of the Roman people. You have, 0
Quintus, no relationship, no connexion with that man. In
the case of this man you can have none of those excuses witlj.
which you formerly used to defend your excessive zeal in any
trial. You are bound to take care above all things, that the
things which that fellow used to say in the province, when he
said that he did all that he was doing out of his confidence
in you, shall not be thought to be true.
LXIX. I feel sure now that I have discharged my duty tc
the satisfaction of all those who are most unfavourable to me.
For I convicted him, in the few hours which the first pleading
occupied, in the opinion of every man. The remainder of
the trial is not now about my good faith, which has been
amply proved, nor about that fellow's way of life, which has
been fully condemned ; but it is the judges, and if I am to tell
the truth, it is yourself, who will now be passed sentence on.
But when will that sentence be passed 1 For that is a point
that must be much looked to, since in all things, and espe-
VI. AGAINST VEEEES. 541
cially in state affairs, the consideration of time and circum
stance is of the greatest importance. Why, at that time
•when the Roman people shall demand another class of men,
another order of citizens to act as judges. Sentence will be
pronounced in deciding on that law about new judges and
fresh tribunals, which has been proposed in reality not by the
man whose name you see on the back of it, but by this
defendant. Verres, I say, has contrived to have this law
drawn up and proposed from the hope and opinion which he
entertains of you. Therefore, when this cause was first com
menced, that law had not been proposed ; when Verres,
alarmed at your impartiality, had given many indications
that he was not likely to make any reply at all, still no
mention was made of that law ; when he seemed to pick up a
little courage and to fortify himself with some little hope,
immediately this law was proposed. And as your dignity is
exceedingly inconsistent with this law, so his false hopes and
preeminent impudence are strongly in favour of it. In this
case, if anything blameworthy be done by any of you, either
the Roman people itself will judge that man whom it has
already pronounced unworthy of any trial at all ; or else
those men will judge, who, because of the unpopularity of the
existing tribunals, will be appointed as new judges by a new
law made respecting the old judges.
LXX. For myself, even though I were not to say it myself,
who is there who is not aware how far it is necessary for me
to proceed 1 Will it be possible for me to be silent, 0 Hor-
tensius ? Will it be possible for me to dissemble, when the
republic has received so severe a wound, that, though I
pleaded the cause, our provinces will appear to have been
pillaged, our allies oppressed, the immortal gods plundered,
Roman citizens tortured and murdered with impunity ? Will
it be possible for me either to lay this burden on the shoulders
of this tribunal, or any longer to endure it in silence 1 Must
not the matter be agitated 1 must it not be brought publicly
forward 1 Must not the good faith of the Roman people be
implored ? Must not all who have implicated themselves in
such wickedness as to allow their good faith to be tampered
with, or to give a corrupt decision, be summoned before the
court, and made to encounter a public trial ? -.Perhaps some
one will ask, Are you then going to take upon yourself such
542 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
a labour, and such violent enmity from so many quarters ?
Not, of a truth, from any desire of mine, or of rny own free
will. But I have not the same liberty allowed me that they
have who are born of noble family ; on whom even when
they are asleep all the honours of the Roman people are
showered. I must live in this city on far other terms and
other conditions. For the case of Marcus Cato, a most wise
and active man, occurs to me ; who, as he thought that it
was better to be recommended to the Roman people by virtue
than by high birth, and as he wished that the foundation of
his race and' name should be laid and extended by himself,
voluntarily encountered the enmity of most influential men,
and lived in the discharge of the greatest labours to an ex
treme old age with great credit. After that, did not Quintus
Pompeius, a man born in a low and obscure rank of life, gain
the very highest honours by encountering the enmity of
many, and great personal danger, and by undertaking great
labour ? And lately we have seen Cams Fimbria, Caius
Marcius, and Caius Ccelius, striving with no slight toil, and
in spite of no insignificant opposition, to arrive at those
honours which you nobles arrive at while devoted to amuse
ment or absorbed in indifference. This is the system, this is
the path for our adoption. These are the men whose conduct
and principles we follow.
LXXI. We see how unpopular with, and how hateful to
some men of noble birth, is the virtue and industry of new
men; that, if we only turn our eyes away for a moment,
snares are laid for us ; that, if we give the least room for sus
picion or for accusation, an attack is immediately made on
us; that we must be always vigilant, always labouring. Are
there any enmities ? — let them be encountered ; any toils ? —
let them be undertaken. In truth, silent and secret enmities
are more to be dreaded than war openly declared and waged
against us. There is scarcely one man of noble birth who
looks favourably on our industry; there are no services of
ours by which we can secure their good-will ; they differ from
us in disposition and inclination, as if they were of a different
race and a different nature. What danger then is there to us
in their enmity, when their dispositions are already averse
and inimical to us before we have at all provoked their
enmity ? Wherefore, 0 judges, I earnestly wish that I may
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 543
appear for the last time in the character of an accuser, in the
case of this criminal, when I shall have given satisfaction to
the Roman people, and discharged the duty due to the Sicilians
my clients, and which I have voluntarily undertaken. But
it is my deliberate resolution, if the event should deceive the
expectation which I cherish of you, to prosecute not only
those who are particularly implicated in the guilt of corrupt
ing the tribunal, but those also who have in any way been
accomplices in it. Moreover, if there be any persons, who in
the case of the criminal have any inclination to show them
selves powerful, or audacious, or ingenious in corrupting the
tribunul, let them hold themselves ready, seeing that they will
have to fight a battle with us, while the Roman people will be
the judges of the contest. And if they know that, in the case
of this criminal, whom the Sicilian nation has given me for
my enemy, I have been sufficiently energetic, sufficiently per
severing, and sufficiently vigilant, they may conceive that I
shall be a much more formidable and active enemy to those
men whose enmity I have encountered of my own accord, for
the sake of the Roman people.
LXXII. Now, 0 good and great Jupiter, you, whose royal
present, worthy of your most splendid temple, worthy of the
Capitol and of that citadel of all nations, worthy of being the
gift of a kingj made for you by a king, dedicated and pro
mised to you, that man by his nefarious wickedness wrested
from the hands of a monarch ; you whose most holy and most
beautiful image he carried away from Syracuse ; — And you,
0 royal Juno, whose two temples, situated in two islands of
our allies — at Melita and Samos — temples of the greatest
sanctity and the greatest antiquity, that same man, with
similar wickedness, stripped of all their presents and orna
ments ; — And you, 0 Minerva, whom he also pillaged in two
of your most renowned and most venerated temples — at
Athens, when he took away a great quantity of gold, and at
Syracuse, when he took away everything except the . roof and
walls ; — And you, 0 Latona, 0 Apollo, 0 Diana, whose (I will
not say temples, but, as the universal opinion and religious
belief agrees,) ancient birthplace and divine home at Delos he
plundered by a nocturnal robbery and attack; — You, also,
0 Apollo, whose image he carried away from Chios; — You,
again and again, 0 Diana, whom he plundered at Perga;
544 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
whose most holy image at Segesta, where it had been twice
consecrated — once by their own religious gift, and a second
time by the victory of Publius Africanus — he dared to take
away and remove ; — And you, 0 Mercury, whom Verres has
placed in his villa, and in some private palaestra, but whom
Publius Africanus had placed in a city of the allies, and in
the gymnasium of the Tyndaritans, as a guardian and pro
tector of the youth of the city; — And you, 0 Hercules, whom
that man endeavoured, on a stormy night, with a band of
slaves properly equipped and armed, to tear down from your
situation, and to carry off; — And you, 0 most holy mother
Cybele, whom he left among the Enguini, in your most
august and venerated temple, plundered to such an extent,
that the name only of Africanus, and some traces of your
worship thus violated, remain, but the monuments of victory
and all the ornaments of the temple are no longer visible; —
You, also, 0 you judges and witnesses of all forensic matters,
and of the most important tribunals, and of the laws, and of
the courts of justice, — you, placed in the most frequented place
belonging to the Roman people, 0 Castor and Pollux, from
whose temple that man, in a most wicked manner, procured
gain to himself, and enormous booty; — And, 0 all ye gods,
who, borne on sacred cars, visit the solemn assemblies of our
games, whose road that fellow contrived should be adapted,
not to the dignity of your religious ceremonies, but to his
own profit; — And you, 0 Ceres and Libera, whose sacred
worship, as the opinions and religious belief of all men agree,
is contained in the most important and most abstruse myste
ries; you, by whom the principles of life and food, the ex
amples of laws, customs, humanity, and refinement are said
to have been given and distributed to nations and to cities;
you, whose sacred rites the Roman people has received from
the Greeks and adopted, and now preserves with such reli
gious awe, both publicly and privately, that they seem not to
have been introduced from other nations, but rather to have
been transmitted from hence to other nations, but which have
been polluted and violated by that man alone, in such a
manner, that he had one image of Ceres (which it was im
pious for a man not only to touch, but even to look upon,)
pulled down from its place in the temple at Catina, and taken
Away; and another image of whom he carried away from its
VI. AGAINST VERRES. 545
proper seat and home at Enna; which was a work of such
beauty, that men, when they saw it, thought either that they
saw Ceres herself, or an image of Ceres not wrought by hu
man hand, but one that had fallen from heaven; — You, again
and again I implore and appeal to, most holy goddesses, who
dwell around those lakes and groves of Enna, and who pre
side over all Sicily, which is entrusted to me to be defended ;
you whose invention and gift of corn, which you have distri
buted over the whole earth, inspires all nations and all races
of men with reverence for your divine power; — And all the
other gods, and all the goddesses, do I implore and entreat,
against whose temples and religious worship that man, inspired
by some wicked frenzy and audacity, has always waged a sa
crilegious and impious war, that, if in dealing with this criminal
and this cause my counsels have always tended to the safety
of the allies, the dignity of the Roman people, and the main
tenance of my own character for good faith ; if all my cares,
and vigilance, and thoughts have been directed to nothing
but the discharge of my duty, and the establishment of
truth, I implore them, 0 judges, so to influence you, that the
thoughts which were mine when I undertook this cause, the
good faith which has been mine in pleading it, may be yours
also in deciding it. Lastly, that, if all the actions of Caius
Verres are unexampled and unheard-of instances of wicked
ness, of audacity, of perfidy, of lust, of avarice, and of cruelty,
an end worthy of such a life and such actions may, by your
sentence, overtake him ; and that the republic, and my own
duty to it, may be content with my undertaking this one
prosecution, and that I may be allowed for the future to de
fend the good, instead of being compelled to prosecute the
infamous.
END OF VOL. I.
B. Clay, Son, and Taylor, Printers,
Br-,id Street HiU, London.
MESSRS. BELL AND DALDY'S
CATALOGUE
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LIBRARY OF FRENCH MEMOIRS ....
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43
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19
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400
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8
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FOSTEES MISCELLANEOUS WOEKS, including his Essay
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These Libraries have been created by Mr. Bohn during
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Though Mr. Bohn was not the first to recognize the
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parts of the world where the English language is under
stood an unexampled choice of books, not only for students
and scholars, but for readers who merely seek amusement.
Such a choice, so varied, and at so low a price, does not
exist in this country or elsewhere ; and Mr. Bohn is entitled
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CLASSIFIED INDEX.
AMUSEMENTS.
Angler, Walton . . .".31,41,42
Angler's Manual, Hofland . . . 17
Chess Congress 33
Games of, Morphy . . . 40
Player's Companion . . .40
Handbook . . . .40
— Praxis, Staunton . . . .40
Tournament 4o
Games, Handbook of .... 38
Manly Exercises, Walker ... 31
Shooting, Recreations iu ... 30
AaT.
Didron's Iconography .... 27
Holbein's Bible Cuts .... 27
Dance of Death ... 27
Lanzi's Painting 12
Lectures on Painting .... 39
Michael Angelo and Raphael . . 28
Reynolds' (Sir J.) Works ... 13
Schlegel's ^Esthetic Worts ... 14
Stanley's Synopsis of Painters . . 40
Vasari's Lives of the Palmers . . 15
ATLASES.
Classical Geography 3G
— Long . . .46
Grammar School Atlas .... 47
Marlburough's Campaigns ... 1 0
BIOGRAPHY.
Burke's Life 19
Cellini, Memoirs of 9
Foster's Life, &c 10
Franklin's Autobiography ... 23
Irving's Lite and Letters . . 17,24
Johnson's Life, &c 23
Locke's Life and Letters ... 12
Luther's Life, Michelet .... 12
Nelson's Life, Sou they . . .30,41
Pope's Life, Carruthers .... 30
Walton's Lives 41, 42
Washington's Life . . . . 17, 24
Wellington, Life of 31
BRITISH CLASSICS.
Addison's Works 19
Burke's Works 19
Speeches 19
Milton's Prose Works .... 12
DIVINITY.
Butler's Analogy 42, 44
• and Sermons . . 9
Sermons 44
Works 44
Cirillingworth's Religion of Pro
testants 16
Gregory's Evidences 11
Henry on the Psalms .... 17
Kitto's Scripture Lands .... 27
Krummacher's Parables .... 27
Neandor's Christian Dogmas . . 13
Christian Life ... 13
PAGE
DIVINITY— continued.
Neander's Life of Christ '". . . 13
• Light in Dark Places . 13
New Testament -Greek . 16, 47, 4T
• — Lexicon to . . . 16
Sturm's Communings . . . . 14
Taylor's Living and Dying 14, 43, 45
Wueatley on the Common Prayer . 15
DRAMATIC LITERATURE.
Beaumont and Fletcher .
Lamb's Dramatic Poets .
Tales from Shakespeare
Schlegel's Dramatic Literature
Shakespeare's Plays . . .
Works . .
Sheridan's Dramatic Works.
. 9
. 22
. 41
. 14
IS, 42
. 17
. 14
FICTION.
Andersen's Tales 26
Berber, The 23
Bremer's Works 9
Cattermole's Haddon Hall ... 26
Cinq-Mars 23
Classic Tales . , 16
Defoe's Works 20
G;l Bias 27
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield . 41
Hawthorne's Talcs 24
Howitt's English Life .... 27
Hunt's Book for a Corner ... 27
Irving's Works 17, 24
Keightley's Fairy Mythology . . 22
Lamartine's Genevieve .... 25
Stonemason, &c. . . 25
Longfellow's Prose Works ... 28
Marryat's Works 23
Mayhew's Imag-' of his Father . 25
Mitford's Our Village .... 13
Modern Novelists of France . . 25
Munchausen's Life 25
Robinson Crusoe 30
Sandford and Mtrton "... 25
Tales of the Genii 31
Taylor's El Dorado 25
Uncle Tom's Cabin . . . . 18, 25
White Slave 25
Wide, Wide World 18
Willis's Tales 25
Yule Tide Stories 23
FRENCH AUTHORS.
Fe'iie'km's Telemaque .... 48
La Fontaine's Fables .... 48
Picciola 48
Voltaire's Charles XII -18
GERMAN AUTHOKS.
G Tman Bal'ads 48
Schiller's Wallensteiu .... 48
GEKMAN (THE), TRANSLATIONS FROM.
Goethe's Works 11
Heine's Poems 11
Schiller's Works 13
VI
CLASSIFIED INDEX.
PAGE
GREEK AUTHORS.
jflschylus . . . .' . . . 45, 47
Demosthenes 45
Euripides 45, 47
Herodotus 45, 47
Hesiod 45
Homer 45
Plato 46
Sophocles 46
Thucydides 47
Xenophon's Anabasis ... 47, 47
Cyropajdia .... 47
GUEEK (THE) TRANSLATIONS FROM.
Achilles Tatius 31
jEscbines 16
yEschylus 32
Anthology, Greek 34
Aristophanes 32
Aristotle's Ethics 32
History of Animals . . 32
Metaphysics .... 32
• —- Organon 32
Politics and Economics 32
Rhetoric and Poetics . 32
Athenaeus 33
Bion 36
Callimachus 34
Demosthenes' Orations ... 16, 33
Diogenes Laertius 34
Euripides 34
Heli'jdonn 34
Herodotus 34
Analysis of .... 18
Notes 18
Hesiod 34
Homer's Iliad ..,.-... 34
Pope 30
Odyssey 3t
Pope .... 30
Longus 34
Moschus 36
Philo-Ju'laeus 20
Pin.lar 35
Plato 35
Sophocles 36
Theocritus 36
Tcieognis 34
Thucydides 36
Analysis of . ... 19
Tyrtaeus 36
Xenophon 36
HIST >RTCAL MKM. >IRS.
Carafas of Maddaloni 9
Coxe's Life of Marlbo rough . . 10
M.'moirs of the House of
Austria 10
Gulzot's Life of Monk .... 24
Monk's Contemporaries . 24
Irving's Lt!e of Washington . 17, 24
James's Louts XIV 11
Richard Cjeur de Leon . 11
KoMtrtlt, Memoirs of .... 11
Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious Per
sonages 28
Memoir of Colonel Hutchinson . 11
Duke of Sully ... 16
PAGE
HISTORICAL MEMOIRS— continued.
Memoir of Hampden, by Lord Nu
gent 15
Philip de Commines . 15
Naval and Military Heroes of
Britain 29
Pauli's Life of Alfred the Great . 22
Roscoe's Life of Leo X 13
Lorenzo de Medici 13
HISTORY AND TRAVELS.
Anglo-Saxons, Miller .... 28
Antiquities, Popular, Brand . . 21
Arabs in Spain, Conde" .... 9
Christianity, First Planting of,
Neander 13
CHBONICXES.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Bede . 21
Florence of Worcester's . . 21
Geoffrey de Vinsauf ... 21
Henry of Huntingdon's . . 21
Ingulph's Chronicle ... 22
Matthew of Paris .... 22
Westminster . UZ
Richard of Devizes .... 21
Roger de Hovenden ... 22
Six Old English Chronicles. . 23
William of Malmc -sbury . . 23
Chronological Tables, Blair ... 37
Church History, Neander ... 13
Civilization, Guizot 11
Conquest of England, Thierry . . 14
Diary, Evelyn 15
Pepys 15
Ecclesiastical History, Bede . . 21
Eusebius . 20
Ordericus VI-
talis . . 22
Socrates . 20
Sozomen . 20
Theodoret &
Evagrius .
20
Egypt, Lepsius 22
England, History of, Hughes . . 48
Hume ... 48
— Smollett . . 48
English Constitution, Delolme . .10
Revolution of 1640, Guizot 11
Florence, Machiavelli .... 12
French Revolution of 1848, Lamar-
tine 12
French Revolution, Michelet . . 12
Mignet . . . 12
— . Smyth ... 14
Germany, Menzel 12
Giraldus Cambrensis, Historical
Works 21
Girondists, Lamartine .... 12
History Philosophically Considered,
Miller 17
Hungary, History of .... 11
Index of Dates 37
India, Conquest of, Hall . ... 41
Jesuits, History of, Nicolini . . 29
Modern History, Schlegel ... 14
— Smyth .... 14
Naples under Spanish Dominion . 9
CLASSIFIED INDEX.
HISTORY AND TRAVELS — continued.
Naval Battles, Allen .... 26
Nineteenth Century, Gervinus . . 24
Northern Antiquities, Mallet . . 22
Philosophy, Tenneman .... 19
• of History, Hegel . .18
— Schlegel . 14
Popes, Ranke 13
Pretenders, Jesse 15
Representative Government, Guizot 11
Restoration of the Monarchy, La-
martirie 12
Revolution, Counter, in England,
Carrel 9
Roman Empire, Gibbon .... 20
• Republic, Michelet ... 12
Russia, History of 13
Saracens, Ockley 13
Servia, Ranke 13
Stuarts, Jesse 15
Three Months in Power, Lamartine 25
Tiers Etat, Thierry 15
Travels, Early, in Palestine . . 21
in Americ i, Humboldt . 39
• of Marco Polo .... 22
Wellington, Victories of ... 28
ITALIAN (THE) TRANSLATIONS FROM.
Ariosto's Orlando Furiosa . . 26
Dante, Gary 16
— Wright 26
Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered . . 31
LATIN AUTHORS.
CiBsar, l)e Bello Oallico . . . 4fi, 47
Bks. 1-3 ... 46
Cicero's Cato Major . . . . 46, 47
— Orations 45
Horace 45, 46, 47
Juvenal, Satires, 1-16 . . . . 46
and Persius .... 45
Lucretius 47
Ovid's Fasti 46
Sallust 46, 47
Tacitus, Germania, &c 46
Terence 46
Virgil 46, 47
LATIN (THE), TRANSLATION-! FKOM.
Ammianus Alarcellinus .... 32
Antoninus's Thoughts .... 44
Apuleius, the Golden Ass ... 32
Boethius 21
Osesar 33
Catullus 33
Cicero's Academics, &c 33
Nature of the Gods, &c . 33
Offices, &c 33
On Oratory 33
Orations 33
Cornelius Nepos 34
Eutropius 34
Florus 36
Horace 17, 34
Johannes Sccuudus 35
Justin 34
Juvenal 34
Livy 34
PACK
LATIN (THE) TRANSLATIONS FKOM—
continued.
Lucan 35
Lucilius ii4
Lucretius 35
Martial's Epigrams 35
Ovid 35
Persius 34
Petronius 35
Phsedrus 36
Plautus 35
Pliny's Natural History .... 35
Propertius 35
Quintilian's Institutes .... 36
Sallust 36
Suetonius 36
Sulpicia 34
Tacitus 36
Terence 36
Tibullus 33
Velleius Paterculus 36
Virgil 36
LITERAKY HISTORY, &c.
Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual IS
Schlegel's History of Literature . 14
Sismondi's Literature of South of
Europe 14
MISCELLANEOUS.
Ascham's Schole Master ... 45
Bacon's Essays 9, 44
Browne's (Sir T.) Works ... 21
Cape and the Kaffirs 23
Coin Collector's Manual, Hum
phreys 39
Cotton Manufactures, Ure ... 40
Cruikshank's Three Courses, &c. . 26
Dictionary of Obsolete Words . . 19
Emerson's Orations and Lectures . 23
— Representative Men . 23
Epitaphs 21
Foster's Essays, &c 10
Lectures, &c .... 10
Miscellaneous Works . 10
Fosteriana 10
Fuller's Works 10
Gray's Works 44
Hall's (Basil) Lieutenant ... 41
Midshipman ... 41
(Robert) Works .... 11
Herbert's Works . . . .41,42
Jesse's 1 logs, &c 27
Jivnius's Letters 11
Lion Hunting 25
Locke's Conduct, &c 45
Luther's Table Talk 12
Magic (Ennemoser's) 38
Manufactures (Philosophy of), Ure 4(J
Moral Sentiments, Smith ... 14
Political Cyclopaedia 18
Pottery and Porcelain .... 30
Preachers and Preaching ... 25
Prout's (Father) Reliques ... 30
Starling's Noble Deeds of Women. 30
Taylor's Logic in Theology . . . 45
Physical Theory . . . 4ii
Ultimate Civilization . .45
Vlll
CLASSIFIED INDEX.
MISCELLANEOUS — continued.
Temperance, Carpenter .... 23
Wines, Redding on ..... 30
Young Lady's Book .._,.. 31
NATURAL HISTOKY.
British Birds, Mudie ..... 29
Cage Birds, Bechstein .... 26
Poultry, Dicknon and Mo wbray . 16
Seasons, Howltt ...... 27
Selborne, White ..... 31, 41
Warblers, Sweet ...... '26
POETKT.
Aken side's Poems ..... 43
British Poets— Milton to Kirke
White ........ 17
Burns's Poems ...... 41, 42
-- Songs ....... '41
Butler's Hudibras ..... 26
Coleridge's Poems . . . . 41, 42
Collins's Poems ...... 43
Cowper's Poems ...... 43
- Works ...... i«
Dibdin's Sea Songs ..... 23
Dryden's Poetical Works . . .43
Ellis's Metrical Romances ... 21
Goldsmith's Poems ..... 41
Gower's Confessio Amantis ... 43
Gray's Poems ...... 41,44
Herbert's Poems ..... 41, 43
Kirke White's Poems . . . . ' 44
Longfellow's Poems . . . . 28,41
Milton's Paradise Lost . . 2?, 41, 42
— Regained . . 28, 41
Petrarch's Sonnets ..... 29
Pope's Poetical Works .... 30
Robin Hood Ballads ..... 41
Sea Songs and Ballads . . \ [41
Shakespeare's Poems ... IS, 43
Spenser's Works ...... 43
Thomson's Poems . . . ] '.44
--- Seasons ..... 44
Vaughan's Poems ..... 41, 45
Young's Poems ...... 44
PEOVERBS AND QUOTATIONS.
Dictionary of Greek and Latin Quo
tations ........ 34
Handbook of Proverbs . ! \ '.21
Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs . ! 22
SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.
Anatomy, Comparative, Lawrence . 17
Animal Physiology, Carpenter . . 38
Arts and Sciences, Joyce ... 17
Astrology, Lilly ...... H
Astronomy, Carpenter .... 38
Hind
.....
Bacon's Advancement of Learning 37, 44
— Novum Organum . . 37, 44
Botany, Carpenter ..... 33
SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY— Continued.
Botany, De Jussieu .....
BRIDGEWATKU TREATISES.
Chalmers on Moral Man . .
Kidd on Man ......
Kirby on Animals ....
Prout on Chemistry ...
AVhewell's Astronomy and
General Physics ....
CHEMISTRY.
Agricultural, Stockhardt . .
Elementary, Parkes ....
Principles of, Stockhardt . .
Chevreul on Colour .....
Comparative Physiology, Agassiz .
Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences
Cosmos, Humboldt's .....
GEOLOGY.
General, Richardson . . .
Medals of Creation, Mantell .
Of isle of Wight, Mantel! . .
Of Scripture, Pye Smith . .
Petrifactions, &c., Mantell . .
Wonders of Geology, Mantell
Horology, Carpenter .....
Inventions, Beckmann's History of .
Joyce's Scientific Dialogues ...
Kant's Pure Reason .....
Life, Philosophy of, Schlegel . .
Locke's Philosophical Works . .
Logic, Devey . .....
Mechanical Philosophy, Carpenter .
Medicine, Domestic .....
Mineralogy, Richardson ...
Natural Philosophy, Hogg ...
Oersted's Soul in Nature . . .
Paleontology, Richardson ...
Physics, Hunt ......
Races of Man, Pickering. ...
Schouw's Karth, Plants, Man . .
Science, Poetry of, Hunt. ..
Technical Analysis, Bolley ..
Vegetable Physiology, Carpenter
Views of Natuiv, Humboldt .
Zoology, Carpenter
TOPOGRAPHY.
Athens, Stuart and Revett ... 31
China ......... 26
Egypt, Lord Lindsay's Letters . . 27
Geography, Modem ..... 29
--- Strabo ..... 36
India ......... 27
London, Pictorial Handbook of . . 29
- -- - Redding ...... 25
Nineveh, Bonomi ..... 26
Norway ........ 29
Paris ......... 29
Rome ........ 30
40
18
40
38
37
3S
39
40
39
39
40
39
39
38
9
39
18
14
12
is
3«
38
40
3s
40
40
39
29
40
39
37
38
39
33
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